oscar wilde volume 1
TRANSCRIPT
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Oscar Wilde, Volume 1
CHAPTER PAGE<p>CHAPTER PAGE
CHAPTER I<p>
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II<p>
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III<p>
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV<p>CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V<p>
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI<p>
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII<p>
CHAPTER VII
1
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CHAPTER VIII<p>
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX<p>
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X<p>CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI<p>
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII<p>
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII<p>
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV<p>CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV<p>
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI<p>
CHAPTER XVI
Oscar Wilde, Volume 1
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2), by Frank
Harris This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use
it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) His Life and Confessions
Author: Frank Harris
Release Date: October 17, 2005 [EBook #16894]
Language: English
Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 2
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OSCAR
WILDE, VOLUME 1 (OF 2) ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Linda Cantoni, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
OSCAR WILDE
HIS LIFE AND CONFESSIONS
BY
FRANK HARRIS
VOLUME I
[Illustration: Oscar Wilde at About Thirty]
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR
29 WAVERLEY PLACE NEW YORK CITY
MCMXVIII
Imprime en Allemagne Printed in Germany
Copyright, 1916, BY FRANK HARRIS
CONTENTS
VOLUME I
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CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION iii
I. Oscar's Father and Mother on Trial 1
II. Oscar Wilde as a Schoolboy 23
III. Trinity, Dublin: Magdalen, Oxford 37
IV. Formative Influences: Oscar's Poems 50
V. Oscar's Quarrel with Whistler and Marriage 73
VI. Oscar Wilde's Faith and Practice 91
VII. Oscar's Reputation and Supporters 102
VIII. Oscar's Growth to Originality About 1890 112
IX. The Summer of Success: Oscar's First Play 133
X. The First Meeting with Lord Alfred Douglas 144
XI. The Threatening Cloud Draws Nearer 156
XII. Danger Signals: the Challenge 175
XIII. Oscar Attacks Queensberry and is Worsted 202
XIV. How Genius is Persecuted in England 229
XV. The Queen _vs._ Wilde: The First Trial 261
XVI. Escape Rejected: The Second Trial and Sentence 292
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VOLUME II
[Transcriber's Note: Volume II is also available on Project Gutenberg.]
XVII. Prison and the Effects of Punishment 321
XVIII. Mitigation of Punishment; but not Release 345
XIX. His St. Martin's Summer: His Best Work 363
XX. The Results of His Second Fall: His Genius 406
XXI. His Sense of Rivalry; His Love of Life and Laziness 433
XXII. "A Great Romantic Passion!" 450
XXIII. His Judgments of Writers and of Women 469
XXIV. We Argue About His "Pet Vice" and Punishment 488
XXV. The Last Hope Lost 509
XXVI. The End 532
XXVII. A Last Word 542
Shaw's "Memories" 1-32
THE APPENDIX, 549
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME I
Oscar Wilde at About Thirty Frontispiece
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FACING PAGE Dr. Sir William Wilde 22
Oscar Wilde at Twenty-Seven, as He First Appeared in America 75
Oscar Wilde 90 [Transcriber's Note: This illustration is not in the originallist.]
VOLUME II
Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas About 1893 321
"Speranza": Lady Wilde as a Young Woman 358
Note to Warder Martin 576
THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE GUILTY IS STILL MORE
AWE-INSPIRING THAN THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE INNOCENT;
WHAT DO WE MEN KNOW OF INNOCENCE?
INTRODUCTION
I was advised on all hands not to write this book, and some English friends
who have read it urge me not to publish it.
"You will be accused of selecting the subject," they say, "because sexual
viciousness appeals to you, and your method of treatment lays you open to
attack.
"You criticise and condemn the English conception of justice, and English
legal methods: you even question the impartiality of English judges, and
throw an unpleasant light on English juries and the English public--all of
which is not only unpopular but will convince the unthinking that you are a
presumptuous, or at least an outlandish, person with too good a conceit of
himself and altogether too free a tongue."
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I should be more than human or less if these arguments did not give me
pause. I would do nothing willingly to alienate the few who are still
friendly to me. But the motives driving me are too strong for such personal
considerations. I might say with the Latin:
"Non me tua fervida terrent, Dicta, ferox: Di me terrent, et Jupiter hostis."
Even this would be only a part of the truth. Youth it seems to me should
always be prudent, for youth has much to lose: but I am come to that time
of life when a man can afford to be bold, may even dare to be himself and
write the best in him, heedless of knaves and fools or of anything this world
may do. The voyage for me is almost over: I am in sight of port: like a good
shipman, I have already sent down the lofty spars and housed the captiouscanvas in preparation for the long anchorage: I have little now to fear.
And the immortals are with me in my design. Greek tragedy treated of far
more horrible and revolting themes, such as the banquet of Thyestes: and
Dante did not shrink from describing the unnatural meal of Ugolino. The
best modern critics approve my choice. "All depends on the subject," says
Matthew Arnold, talking of great literature: "choose a fitting action--a great
and significant action--penetrate yourself with the feeling of the situation:
this done, everything else will follow; for expression is subordinate and
secondary."
Socrates was found guilty of corrupting the young and was put to death for
the offence. His accusation and punishment constitute surely a great and
significant action such as Matthew Arnold declared was alone of the
highest and most permanent literary value.
The action involved in the rise and ruin of Oscar Wilde is of the same kind
and of enduring interest to humanity. Critics may say that Wilde is a
smaller person than Socrates, less significant in many ways: but even if this
were true, it would not alter the artist's position; the great portraits of the
world are not of Napoleon or Dante. The differences between men are not
important in comparison with their inherent likeness. To depict the mortal
so that he takes on immortality--that is the task of the artist.
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There are special reasons, too, why I should handle this story. Oscar Wilde
was a friend of mine for many years: I could not help prizing him to the
very end: he was always to me a charming, soul-animating influence. He
was dreadfully punished by men utterly his inferiors: ruined, outlawed,
persecuted till Death itself came as a deliverance. His sentence impeacheshis judges. The whole story is charged with tragic pathos and unforgettable
lessons. I have waited for more than ten years hoping that some one would
write about him in this spirit and leave me free to do other things, but
nothing such as I propose has yet appeared.
Oscar Wilde was greater as a talker, in my opinion, than as a writer, and no
fame is more quickly evanescent. If I do not tell his story and paint his
portrait, it seems unlikely that anyone else will do it.
English "strachery" may accuse me of attacking morality: the accusation is
worse than absurd. The very foundations of this old world are moral: the
charred ember itself floats about in space, moves and has its being in
obedience to inexorable law. The thinker may define morality: the reformer
may try to bring our notions of it into nearer accord with the fact: human
love and pity may seek to soften its occasional injustices and mitigate its
intolerable harshness: but that is all the freedom we mortals enjoy, all the
breathing-space allotted to us.
In this book the reader will find the figure of the Prometheus-artist
clamped, so to speak, with bands of steel to the huge granitic cliff of
English puritanism. No account was taken of his manifold virtues and
graces: no credit given him for his extraordinary achievements: he was
hounded out of life because his sins were not the sins of the Englishmiddle-class. The culprit was in[1] much nobler and better than his judges.
Here are all the elements of pity and sorrow and fear that are required in
great tragedy.
The artist who finds in Oscar Wilde a great and provocative subject for his
art needs no argument to justify his choice. If the picture is a great and
living portrait, the moralist will be satisfied: the dark shadows must all be
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there, as well as the high lights, and the effect must be to increase our
tolerance and intensify our pity.
If on the other hand the portrait is ill-drawn or ill-painted, all the reasoning
in the world and the praise of all the sycophants will not save the picturefrom contempt and the artist from censure.
There is one measure by which intention as apart from accomplishment can
be judged, and one only: "If you think the book well done," says Pascal,
"and on re-reading find it strong; be assured that the man who wrote it,
wrote it on his knees." No book could have been written more reverently
than this book of mine.
FRANK HARRIS. Nice, 1910.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] [Transcriber's Note: Printer error. In the 1930 U.S. edition the word "in"
is deleted.]
OSCAR WILDE: HIS LIFE AND CONFESSIONS
CHAPTER I
On the 12th of December, 1864, Dublin society was abuzz with excitement.
A tidbit of scandal which had long been rolled on the tongue in
semi-privacy was to be discussed in open court, and all women and a goodmany men were agog with curiosity and expectation.
The story itself was highly spiced and all the actors in it well known.
A famous doctor and oculist, recently knighted for his achievements, was
the real defendant. He was married to a woman with a great literary
reputation as a poet and writer who was idolized by the populace for her
passionate advocacy of Ireland's claim to self-government; "Speranza" was
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regarded by the Irish people as a sort of Irish Muse.
The young lady bringing the action was the daughter of the professor of
medical jurisprudence at Trinity College, who was also the chief at Marsh's
library.
It was said that this Miss Travers, a pretty girl just out of her teens, had
been seduced by Dr. Sir William Wilde while under his care as a patient.
Some went so far as to say that chloroform had been used, and that the girl
had been violated.
The doctor was represented as a sort of Minotaur: lustful stories were
invented and repeated with breathless delight; on all faces, the joy of malicious curiosity and envious denigration.
The interest taken in the case was extraordinary: the excitement beyond
comparison; the first talents of the Bar were engaged on both sides;
Serjeant Armstrong led for the plaintiff, helped by the famous Mr. Butt,
Q.C., and Mr. Heron, Q.C., who were in turn backed by Mr. Hamill and
Mr. Quinn; while Serjeant Sullivan was for the defendant, supported by Mr.
Sidney, Q.C., and Mr. Morris, Q.C., and aided by Mr. John Curran and Mr.
Purcell.
The Court of Common Pleas was the stage; Chief Justice Monahan
presiding with a special jury. The trial was expected to last a week, and not
only the Court but the approaches to it were crowded.
To judge by the scandalous reports, the case should have been a criminalcase, should have been conducted by the Attorney-General against Sir
William Wilde; but that was not the way it presented itself. The action was
not even brought directly by Miss Travers or by her father, Dr. Travers,
against Sir William Wilde for rape or criminal assault, or seduction. It was
a civil action brought by Miss Travers, who claimed £2,000 damages for a
libel written by Lady Wilde to her father, Dr. Travers. The letter
complained of ran as follows:--
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TOWER, BRAY, May 6th.
Sir, you may not be aware of the disreputable conduct of your daughter at
Bray where she consorts with all the low newspaper boys in the place,
employing them to disseminate offensive placards in which my name isgiven, and also tracts in which she makes it appear that she has had an
intrigue with Sir William Wilde. If she chooses to disgrace herself, it is not
my affair, but as her object in insulting me is in the hope of extorting
money for which she has several times applied to Sir William Wilde with
threats of more annoyance if not given, I think it right to inform you, as no
threat of additional insult shall ever extort money from our hands. The
wages of disgrace she has so basely treated for and demanded shall never
be given her.
JANE F. WILDE.
To Dr. Travers.
The summons and plaint charged that this letter written to the father of the
plaintiff by Lady Wilde was a libel reflecting on the character and chastity
of Miss Travers, and as Lady Wilde was a married woman, her husband Sir
William Wilde was joined in the action as a co-defendant for conformity.
The defences set up were:--
First, a plea of "No libel": secondly, that the letter did not bear the
defamatory sense imputed by the plaint: thirdly, a denial of the publication,
and, fourthly, a plea of privilege. This last was evidently the real defenceand was grounded upon facts which afforded some justification of Lady
Wilde's bitter letter.
It was admitted that for a year or more Miss Travers had done her uttermost
to annoy both Sir William Wilde and his wife in every possible way. The
trouble began, the defence stated, by Miss Travers fancying that she was
slighted by Lady Wilde. She thereupon published a scandalous pamphlet
under the title of "Florence Boyle Price, a Warning; by Speranza," with the
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evident intention of causing the public to believe that the booklet was the
composition of Lady Wilde under the assumed name of Florence Boyle
Price. In this pamphlet Miss Travers asserted that a person she called Dr.
Quilp had made an attempt on her virtue. She put the charge mildly. "It is
sad," she wrote, "to think that in the nineteenth century a lady must notventure into a physician's study without being accompanied by a bodyguard
to protect her."
Miss Travers admitted that Dr. Quilp was intended for Sir William Wilde;
indeed she identified Dr. Quilp with the newly made knight in a dozen
different ways. She went so far as to describe his appearance. She declared
that he had "an animal, sinister expression about his mouth which was
coarse and vulgar in the extreme: the large protruding under lip was mostunpleasant. Nor did the upper part of his face redeem the lower part. His
eyes were small and round, mean and prying in expression. There was no
candour in the doctor's countenance, where one looked for candour." Dr.
Quilp's quarrel with his victim, it appeared, was that she was "unnaturally
passionless."
The publication of such a pamphlet was calculated to injure both Sir
William and Lady Wilde in public esteem, and Miss Travers was not
content to let the matter rest there. She drew attention to the pamphlet by
letters to the papers, and on one occasion, when Sir William Wilde was
giving a lecture to the Young Men's Christian Association at the
Metropolitan Hall, she caused large placards to be exhibited in the
neighbourhood having upon them in large letters the words "Sir William
Wilde and Speranza." She employed one of the persons bearing a placard to
go about ringing a large hand bell which she, herself, had given to him forthe purpose. She even published doggerel verses in the Dublin Weekly
Advertiser , and signed them "Speranza," which annoyed Lady Wilde
intensely. One read thus:--
Your progeny is quite a pest To those who hate such "critters"; Some sport
I'll have, or I'm blest I'll fry the Wilde breed in the West Then you can call
them Fritters.
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She wrote letters to Saunders Newsletter , and even reviewed a book of
Lady Wilde's entitled "The First Temptation," and called it a "blasphemous
production." Moreover, when Lady Wilde was staying at Bray, Miss
Travers sent boys to offer the pamphlet for sale to the servants in her house.
In fine Miss Travers showed a keen feminine ingenuity and pertinacity inpersecution worthy of a nobler motive.
But the defence did not rely on such annoyance as sufficient provocation
for Lady Wilde's libellous letter. The plea went on to state that Miss
Travers had applied to Sir William Wilde for money again and again, and
accompanied these applications with threats of worse pen-pricks if the
requests were not acceded to. It was under these circumstances, according
to Lady Wilde, that she wrote the letter complained of to Dr. Travers andenclosed it in a sealed envelope. She wished to get Dr. Travers to use his
parental influence to stop Miss Travers from further disgracing herself and
insulting and annoying Sir William and Lady Wilde.
The defence carried the war into the enemy's camp by thus suggesting that
Miss Travers was blackmailing Sir William and Lady Wilde.
The attack in the hands of Serjeant Armstrong was still more deadly and
convincing. He rose early on the Monday afternoon and declared at the
beginning that the case was so painful that he would have preferred not to
have been engaged in it--a hypocritical statement which deceived no one,
and was just as conventional-false as his wig. But with this exception the
story he told was extraordinarily clear and gripping.
Some ten years before, Miss Travers, then a young girl of nineteen, wassuffering from partial deafness, and was recommended by her own doctor
to go to Dr. Wilde, who was the chief oculist and aurist in Dublin. Miss
Travers went to Dr. Wilde, who treated her successfully. Dr. Wilde would
accept no fees from her, stating at the outset that as she was the daughter of
a brother-physician, he thought it an honour to be of use to her. Serjeant
Armstrong assured his hearers that in spite of Miss Travers' beauty he
believed that at first Dr. Wilde took nothing but a benevolent interest in the
girl. Even when his professional services ceased to be necessary, Dr. Wilde
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continued his friendship. He wrote Miss Travers innumerable letters: he
advised her as to her reading and sent her books and tickets for places of
amusement: he even insisted that she should be better dressed, and pressed
money upon her to buy bonnets and clothes and frequently invited her to
his house for dinners and parties. The friendship went on in this sentimentalkindly way for some five or six years till 1860.
The wily Serjeant knew enough about human nature to feel that it was
necessary to discover some dramatic incident to change benevolent
sympathy into passion, and he certainly found what he wanted.
Miss Travers, it appeared, had been burnt low down on her neck when a
child: the cicatrice could still be seen, though it was gradually disappearing.When her ears were being examined by Dr. Wilde, it was customary for her
to kneel on a hassock before him, and he thus discovered this burn on her
neck. After her hearing improved he still continued to examine the cicatrice
from time to time, pretending to note the speed with which it was
disappearing. Some time in '60 or '61 Miss Travers had a corn on the sole
of her foot which gave her some pain. Dr. Wilde did her the honour of
paring the corn with his own hands and painting it with iodine. The cunning
Serjeant could not help saying with some confusion, natural or assumed,
"that it would have been just as well--at least there are men of such
temperament that it would be dangerous to have such a manipulation going
on." The spectators in the court smiled, feeling that in "manipulation" the
Serjeant had found the most neatly suggestive word.
Naturally at this point Serjeant Sullivan interfered in order to stem the
rising tide of interest and to blunt the point of the accusation. Sir WilliamWilde, he said, was not the man to shrink from any investigation: but he
was only in the case formally and he could not meet the allegations, which
therefore were "one-sided and unfair" and so forth and so on.
After the necessary pause, Serjeant Armstrong plucked his wig straight and
proceeded to read letters of Dr. Wilde to Miss Travers at this time, in which
he tells her not to put too much iodine on her foot, but to rest it for a few
days in a slipper and keep it in a horizontal position while reading a
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pleasant book. If she would send in, he would try and send her one.
"I have now," concluded the Serjeant, like an actor carefully preparing his
effect, "traced this friendly intimacy down to a point where it begins to be
dangerous: I do not wish to aggravate the gravity of the charge in theslightest by any rhetoric or by an unconscious over-statement; you shall
therefore, gentlemen of the jury, hear from Miss Travers herself what took
place between her and Dr. Wilde and what she complains of."
Miss Travers then went into the witness-box. Though thin and past her first
youth, she was still pretty in a conventional way, with regular features and
dark eyes. She was examined by Mr. Butt, Q.C. After confirming point by
point what Serjeant Armstrong had said, she went on to tell the jury that inthe summer of '62 she had thought of going to Australia, where her two
brothers lived, who wanted her to come out to them. Dr. Wilde lent her £40
to go, but told her she must say it was £20 or her father might think the sum
too large. She missed the ship in London and came back. She was anxious
to impress on the jury the fact that she had repaid Dr. Wilde, that she had
always repaid whatever he had lent her.
She went on to relate how one day Dr. Wilde had got her in a kneeling
position at his feet, when he took her in his arms, declaring that he would
not let her go until she called him William. Miss Travers refused to do this,
and took umbrage at the embracing and ceased to visit at his house: but Dr.
Wilde protested extravagantly that he had meant nothing wrong, and
begged her to forgive him and gradually brought about a reconciliation
which was consummated by pressing invitations to parties and by a loan of
two or three pounds for a dress, which loan, like the others, had beencarefully repaid.
The excitement in the court was becoming breathless. It was felt that the
details were cumulative; the doctor was besieging the fortress in proper
form. The story of embracings, reconciliations and loans all prepared the
public for the great scene.
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The girl went on, now answering questions, now telling bits of the story in
her own way, Mr. Butt, the great advocate, taking care that it should all be
consecutive and clear with a due crescendo of interest. In October, 1862, it
appeared Lady Wilde was not in the house at Merrion Square, but was
away at Bray, as one of the children had not been well, and she thought thesea air would benefit him. Dr. Wilde was alone in the house. Miss Travers
called and was admitted into Dr. Wilde's study. He put her on her knees
before him and bared her neck, pretending to examine the burn; he fondled
her too much and pressed her to him: she took offence and tried to draw
away. Somehow or other his hand got entangled in a chain at her neck. She
called out to him, "You are suffocating me," and tried to rise: but he cried
out like a madman: "I will, I want to," and pressed what seemed to be a
handkerchief over her face. She declared that she lost consciousness.
When she came to herself she found Dr. Wilde frantically imploring her to
come to her senses, while dabbing water on her face, and offering her wine
to drink.
"If you don't drink," he cried, "I'll pour it over you."
For some time, she said, she scarcely realized where she was or what had
occurred, though she heard him talking. But gradually consciousness came
back to her, and though she would not open her eyes she understood what
he was saying. He talked frantically:
"Do be reasonable, and all will be right.... I am in your power ... spare me,
oh, spare me ... strike me if you like. I wish to God I could hate you, but I
can't. I swore I would never touch your hand again. Attend to me and dowhat I tell you. Have faith and confidence in me and you may remedy the
past and go to Australia. Think of the talk this may give rise to. Keep up
appearances for your own sake...."
He then took her up-stairs to a bedroom and made her drink some wine and
lie down for some time. She afterwards left the house; she hardly knew
how; he accompanied her to the door, she thought; but could not be certain;
she was half dazed.
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The judge here interposed with the crucial question:
"Did you know that you had been violated?"
The audience waited breathlessly; after a short pause Miss Travers replied:
"Yes."
Then it was true, the worst was true. The audience, excited to the highest
pitch, caught breath with malevolent delight. But the thrills were not
exhausted. Miss Travers next told how in Dr. Wilde's study one evening
she had been vexed at some slight, and at once took four pennyworth of
laudanum which she had bought. Dr. Wilde hurried her round to the houseof Dr. Walsh, a physician in the neighbourhood, who gave her an antidote.
Dr. Wilde was dreadfully frightened lest something should get out....
She admitted at once that she had sometimes asked Dr. Wilde for money:
she thought nothing of it as she had again and again repaid him the monies
which he had lent her.
Miss Travers' examination in chief had been intensely interesting. The
fashionable ladies had heard all they had hoped to hear, and it was noticed
that they were not so eager to get seats in the court from this time on,
though the room was still crowded.
The cross-examination of Miss Travers was at least as interesting to the
student of human nature as the examination in chief had been, for in her
story of what took place on that 14th of October, weaknesses anddiscrepancies of memory were discovered and at length improbabilities and
contradictions in the narrative itself.
First of all it was elicited that she could not be certain of the day; it might
have been the 15th or the 16th: it was Friday the 14th, she thought.... It was
a great event to her; the most awful event in her whole life; yet she could
not remember the day for certain.
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"Did you tell anyone of what had taken place?"
"No."
"Not even your father?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I did not wish to give him pain."
"But you went back to Dr. Wilde's study after the awful assault?"
"Yes."
"You went again and again, did you not?"
"Yes."
"Did he ever attempt to repeat the offence?"
"Yes."
The audience was thunderstruck; the plot was deepening. Miss Travers
went on to say that the Doctor was rude to her again; she did not know his
intention; he took hold of her and tried to fondle her; but she would not
have it.
"After the second offence you went back?"
"Yes."
"Did he ever repeat it again?"
"Yes."
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Miss Travers said that once again Dr. Wilde had been rude to her.
"Yet you returned again?"
"Yes."
"And you took money from this man who had violated you against your
will?"
"Yes."
"You asked him for money?"
"Yes."
"This is the first time you have told about this second and third assault, is it
not?"
"Yes," the witness admitted.
So far all that Miss Travers had said hung together and seemed eminently
credible; but when she was questioned about the chloroform and the
handkerchief she became confused. At the outset she admitted that the
handkerchief might have been a rag. She was not certain it was a rag. It was
something she saw the doctor throw into the fire when she came to her
senses.
"Had he kept it in his hands, then, all the time you were unconscious?"
"I don't know."
"Just to show it to you?"
The witness was silent.
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When she was examined as to her knowledge of chloroform, she broke
down hopelessly. She did not know the smell of it; could not describe it;
did not know whether it burnt or not; could not in fact swear that it was
chloroform Dr. Wilde had used; would not swear that it was anything;
believed that it was chloroform or something like it because she lostconsciousness. That was her only reason for saying that chloroform had
been given to her.
Again the judge interposed with the probing question:
"Did you say anything about chloroform in your pamphlet?"
"No," the witness murmured.
It was manifest that the strong current of feeling in favour of Miss Travers
had begun to ebb. The story was a toothsome morsel still: but it was
regretfully admitted that the charge of rape had not been pushed home. It
was felt to be disappointing, too, that the chief prosecuting witness should
have damaged her own case.
It was now the turn of the defence, and some thought the pendulum might
swing back again.
Lady Wilde was called and received an enthusiastic reception. The ordinary
Irishman was willing to show at any time that he believed in his Muse, and
was prepared to do more than cheer for one who had fought with her pen
for "Oireland" in the Nation side by side with Tom Davis.
Lady Wilde gave her evidence emphatically, but was too bitter to be a
persuasive witness. It was tried to prove from her letter that she believed
that Miss Travers had had an intrigue with Sir William Wilde, but she
would not have it. She did not for a moment believe in her husband's guilt.
Miss Travers wished to make it appear, she said, that she had an intrigue
with Sir William Wilde, but in her opinion it was utterly untrue. Sir
William Wilde was above suspicion. There was not a particle of truth in the
accusation; her husband would never so demean himself.
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Lady Wilde's disdainful speeches seemed to persuade the populace, but had
small effect on the jury, and still less on the judge.
When she was asked if she hated Miss Travers, she replied that she did not
hate anyone, but she had to admit that she disliked Miss Travers' methodsof action.
"Why did you not answer Miss Travers when she wrote telling you of your
husband's attempt on her virtue?"
"I took no interest in the matter," was the astounding reply.
The defence made an even worse mistake than this. When the time came,Sir William Wilde was not called.
In his speech for Miss Travers, Mr. Butt made the most of this omission.
He declared that the refusal of Sir William Wilde to go into the witness box
was an admission of guilt; an admission that Miss Travers' story of her
betrayal was true and could not be contradicted. But the refusal of Sir
William Wilde to go into the box was not, he insisted, the worst point in the
defence. He reminded the jury that he had asked Lady Wilde why she had
not answered Miss Travers when she wrote to her. He recalled Lady
Wilde's reply:
"I took no interest in the matter."
Every woman would be interested in such a thing, he declared, even a
stranger; but Lady Wilde hated her husband's victim and took no interest inher seduction beyond writing a bitter, vindictive and libellous letter to the
girl's father....
The speech was regarded as a masterpiece and enhanced the already great
reputation of the man who was afterwards to become the Home Rule
Leader.
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It only remained for the judge to sum up, for everyone was getting
impatient to hear the verdict. Chief Justice Monahan made a short,
impartial speech, throwing the dry, white light of truth upon the conflicting
and passionate statements. First of all, he said, it was difficult to believe in
the story of rape whether with or without chloroform. If the girl had beenviolated she would be expected to cry out at the time, or at least to
complain to her father as soon as she reached home. Had it been a criminal
trial, he pointed out, no one would have believed this part of Miss Travers'
story. When you find a girl does not cry out at the time and does not
complain afterwards, and returns to the house to meet further rudeness, it
must be presumed that she consented to the seduction.
But was there a seduction? The girl asserted that there was guilty intimacy,and Sir William Wilde had not contradicted her. It was said that he was
only formally a defendant; but he was the real defendant and he could have
gone into the box if he had liked and given his version of what took place
and contradicted Miss Travers in whole or in part.
"It is for you, gentlemen of the jury, to draw your own conclusions from his
omission to do what one would have thought would be an honourable man's
first impulse and duty."
Finally it was for the jury to consider whether the letter was a libel and if so
what the amount of damages should be.
His Lordship recalled the jury at Mr. Butt's request to say that in assessing
damages they might also take into consideration the fact that the defence
was practically a justification of the libel. The fair-mindedness of the judgewas conspicuous from first to last, and was worthy of the high traditions of
the Irish Bench.
After deliberating for a couple of hours the jury brought in a verdict which
had a certain humour in it. They awarded to Miss Travers a farthing
damages and intimated that the farthing should carry costs. In other words
they rated Miss Travers' virtue at the very lowest coin of the realm, while
insisting that Sir William Wilde should pay a couple of thousands of
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pounds in costs for having seduced her.
It was generally felt that the verdict did substantial justice; though the jury,
led away by patriotic sympathy with Lady Wilde, the true "Speranza," had
been a little hard on Miss Travers. No one doubted that Sir William Wildehad seduced his patient. He had, it appeared, an unholy reputation, and the
girl's admission that he had accused her of being "unnaturally passionless"
was accepted as the true key of the enigma. This was why he had drawn
away from the girl, after seducing her. And it was not unnatural under the
circumstances that she should become vindictive and revengeful.
Such inferences as these, I drew from the comments of the Irish papers at
the time; but naturally I wished if possible to hear some trustworthycontemporary on the matter. Fortunately such testimony was forthcoming.
A Fellow of Trinity, who was then a young man, embodied the best opinion
of the time in an excellent pithy letter. He wrote to me that the trial simply
established, what every one believed, that "Sir William Wilde was a
pithecoid person of extraordinary sensuality and cowardice (funking the
witness-box left him without a defender!) and that his wife was a
highfalutin' pretentious creature whose pride was as extravagant as her
reputation founded on second-rate verse-making.... Even when a young
woman she used to keep her rooms in Merrion Square in semi-darkness;
she laid the paint on too thick for any ordinary light, and she gave herself
besides all manner of airs."
This incisive judgment of an able and fairly impartial contemporary
observer[2] corroborates, I think, the inferences which one would naturallydraw from the newspaper accounts of the trial. It seems to me that both
combine to give a realistic photograph, so to speak, of Sir William and
Lady Wilde. An artist, however, would lean to a more kindly picture.
Trying to see the personages as they saw themselves he would balance the
doctor's excessive sensuality and lack of self-control by dwelling on the
fact that his energy and perseverance and intimate adaptation to his
surroundings had brought him in middle age to the chief place in his
profession, and if Lady Wilde was abnormally vain, a verse-maker and not
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a poet, she was still a talented woman of considerable reading and manifold
artistic sympathies.
Such were the father and mother of Oscar Wilde.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] As he has died since this was written, there is no longer any reason for
concealing his name: R.Y. Tyrrell, for many years before his death Regius
Professor of Greek in Trinity College, Dublin.
CHAPTER II
The Wildes had three children, two sons and a daughter. The first son was
born in 1852, a year after the marriage, and was christened after his father
William Charles Kingsbury Wills. The second son was born two years
later, in 1854 and the names given to him seem to reveal the Nationalist
sympathies and pride of his mother. He was christened Oscar Fingal
O'Flahertie Wills Wilde; but he appears to have suffered from the pompousstring only in extreme youth. At school he concealed the "Fingal," as a
young man he found it advisable to omit the "O'Flahertie."
In childhood and early boyhood Oscar was not considered as quick or
engaging or handsome as his brother, Willie. Both boys had the benefit of
the best schooling of the time. They were sent as boarders to the Portora
School at Enniskillen, one of the four Royal schools of Ireland. Oscar went
to Portora in 1864 at the age of nine, a couple of years after his brother. Heremained at the school for seven years and left it on winning an Exhibition
for Trinity College, Dublin, when he was just seventeen.
The facts hitherto collected and published about Oscar as a schoolboy are
sadly meagre and insignificant. Fortunately for my readers I have received
from Sir Edward Sullivan, who was a contemporary of Oscar both at school
and college, an exceedingly vivid and interesting pen-picture of the lad, one
of those astounding masterpieces of portraiture only to be produced by the
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plastic sympathies of boyhood and the intimate intercourse of years lived in
common. It is love alone which in later life can achieve such a miracle of
representment. I am very glad to be allowed to publish this realistic
miniature, in the very words of the author.
"I first met Oscar Wilde in the early part of 1868 at Portora Royal School.
He was thirteen or fourteen years of age. His long straight fair hair was a
striking feature of his appearance. He was then, as he remained for some
years after, extremely boyish in nature, very mobile, almost restless when
out of the schoolroom. Yet he took no part in the school games at any time.
Now and then he would be seen in one of the school boats on Loch Erne:
yet he was a poor hand at an oar.
"Even as a schoolboy he was an excellent talker: his descriptive power
being far above the average, and his humorous exaggerations of school
occurrences always highly amusing.
"A favourite place for the boys to sit and gossip in the late afternoon in
winter time was round a stove which stood in 'The Stone Hall.' Here Oscar
was at his best; although his brother Willie was perhaps in those days even
better than he was at telling a story.
"Oscar would frequently vary the entertainment by giving us extremely
quaint illustrations of holy people in stained-glass attitudes: his power of
twisting his limbs into weird contortions being very great. (I am told that
Sir William Wilde, his father, possessed the same power.) It must not be
thought, however, that there was any suggestion of irreverence in the
exhibition.
"At one of these gatherings, about the year 1870, I remember a discussion
taking place about an ecclesiastical prosecution that made a considerable
stir at the time. Oscar was present, and full of the mysterious nature of the
Court of Arches; he told us there was nothing he would like better in after
life than to be the hero of such a _cause celèbre_ and to go down to
posterity as the defendant in such a case as 'Regina versus Wilde!'
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"At school he was almost always called 'Oscar'--but he had a nick-name,
'Grey-crow,' which the boys would call him when they wished to annoy
him, and which he resented greatly. It was derived in some mysterious way
from the name of an island in the Upper Loch Erne, within easy reach of
the school by boat.
"It was some little time before he left Portora that the boys got to know of
his full name, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde. Just at the close of his
school career he won the 'Carpenter' Greek Testament Prize,--and on
presentation day was called up to the dais by Dr. Steele, by all his
names--much to Oscar's annoyance; for a great deal of schoolboy chaff
followed.
"He was always generous, kindly, good-tempered. I remember he and
myself were on one occasion mounted as opposing jockeys on the backs of
two bigger boys in what we called a 'tournament,' held in one of the
class-rooms. Oscar and his horse were thrown, and the result was a broken
arm for Wilde. Knowing that it was an accident, he did not let it make any
difference in our friendship.
"He had, I think, no very special chums while at school. I was perhaps as
friendly with him all through as anybody, though his junior in class by a
year....
"Willie Wilde was never very familiar with him, treating him always, in
those days, as a younger brother....
"When in the head class together, we with two other boys were in the townof Enniskillen one afternoon, and formed part of an audience who were
listening to a street orator. One of us, for the fun of the thing, got near the
speaker and with a stick knocked his hat off and then ran for home
followed by the other three. Several of the listeners, resenting the
impertinence, gave chase, and Oscar in his hurry collided with an aged
cripple and threw him down--a fact which was duly reported to the boys
when we got safely back. Oscar was afterwards heard telling how he found
his way barred by an angry giant with whom he fought through many
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rounds and whom he eventually left for dead in the road after
accomplishing prodigies of valour on his redoubtable opponent. Romantic
imagination was strong in him even in those schoolboy days; but there was
always something in his telling of such a tale to suggest that he felt his
hearers were not really being taken in; it was merely the romancingindulged in so humorously by the two principal male characters in 'The
Importance of Being Earnest.'...
"He never took any interest in mathematics either at school or college. He
laughed at science and never had a good word for a mathematical or
science master, but there was nothing spiteful or malignant in anything he
said against them; or indeed against anybody.
"The romances that impressed him most when at school were Disraeli's
novels. He spoke slightingly of Dickens as a novelist....
"The classics absorbed almost his whole attention in his later school days,
and the flowing beauty of his oral translations in class, whether of
Thucydides, Plato or Virgil, was a thing not easily to be forgotten."
This photograph, so to speak, of Oscar as a schoolboy is astonishingly clear
and lifelike; but I have another portrait of him from another contemporary,
who has since made for himself a high name as a scholar at Trinity, which,
while confirming the general traits sketched by Sir Edward Sullivan, takes
somewhat more notice of certain mental qualities which came later to the
fruiting.
This observer who does not wish his name given, writes:
"Oscar had a pungent wit, and nearly all the nicknames in the school were
given by him. He was very good on the literary side of scholarship, with a
special leaning to poetry....
"We noticed that he always liked to have editions of the classics that were
of stately size with large print.... He was more careful in his dress than any
other boy.
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"He was a wide reader and read very fast indeed; how much he assimilated
I never could make out. He was poor at music.
"We thought him a fair scholar but nothing extraordinary. However, he
startled everyone the last year at school in the classical medal examination,by walking easily away from us all in the viva voce of the Greek play ('The
Agamemnon')."
I may now try and accentuate a trait or two of these photographs, so to
speak, and then realise the whole portrait by adding an account given to me
by Oscar himself. The joy in humorous romancing and the sweetness of
temper recorded by Sir Edward Sullivan were marked traits in Oscar's
character all through his life. His care in dressing too, and his delight instately editions; his love of literature "with a special leaning to poetry" were
all qualities which distinguished him to the end.
"Until the last year of my school life at Portora," he said to me once, "I had
nothing like the reputation of my brother Willie. I read too many English
novels, too much poetry, dreamed away too much time to master the school
tasks.
"Knowledge came to me through pleasure, as it always comes, I imagine....
"I was nearly sixteen when the wonder and beauty of the old Greek life
began to dawn upon me. Suddenly I seemed to see the white figures
throwing purple shadows on the sun-baked palæstra; 'bands of nude youths
and maidens'--you remember Gautier's words--'moving across a
background of deep blue as on the frieze of the Parthenon.' I began to readGreek eagerly for love of it all, and the more I read the more I was
enthralled:
Oh what golden hours were for us As we sat together there, While the white
vests of the chorus Seemed to wave up a light air; While the cothurns trod
majestic Down the deep iambic lines And the rolling anapæstics Curled like
vapour over shrines.
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"The head master was always holding my brother Willie up to me as an
example; but even he admitted that in my last year at Portora I had made
astounding progress. I laid the foundation there of whatever classical
scholarship I possess."
It occurred to me once to ask Oscar in later years whether the boarding
school life of a great, public school was not responsible for a good deal of
sensual viciousness.
"Englishmen all say so," he replied, "but it did not enter into my
experience. I was very childish, Frank; a mere boy till I was over sixteen.
Of course I was sensual and curious, as boys are, and had the usual boy
imaginings; but I did not indulge in them excessively.
"At Portora nine out of ten boys only thought of football or cricket or
rowing. Nearly every one went in for athletics--running and jumping and so
forth; no one appeared to care for sex. We were healthy young barbarians
and that was all."
"Did you go in for games?" I asked.
"No," Oscar replied smiling, "I never liked to kick or be kicked."
"Surely you went about with some younger boy, did you not, to whom you
told your dreams and hopes, and whom you grew to care for?"
The question led to an intimate personal confession, which may take its
place here.
"It is strange you should have mentioned it," he said. "There was one boy,
and," he added slowly, "one peculiar incident. It occurred in my last year at
Portora. The boy was a couple of years younger than I--we were great
friends; we used to take long walks together and I talked to him
interminably. I told him what I should have done had I been Alexander, or
how I'd have played king in Athens, had I been Alcibiades. As early as I
can remember I used to identify myself with every distinguished character I
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read about, but when I was fifteen or sixteen I noticed with some wonder
that I could think of myself as Alcibiades or Sophocles more easily than as
Alexander or Cæsar. The life of books had begun to interest me more than
real life....
"My friend had a wonderful gift for listening. I was so occupied with
talking and telling about myself that I knew very little about him, curiously
little when I come to think of it. But the last incident of my school life
makes me think he was a sort of mute poet, and had much more in him than
I imagined. It was just before I first heard that I had won an Exhibition and
was to go to Trinity. Dr. Steele had called me into his study to tell me the
great news; he was very glad, he said, and insisted that it was all due to my
last year's hard work. The 'hard' work had been very interesting to me, or Iwould not have done much of it. The doctor wound up, I remember, by
assuring me that if I went on studying as I had been studying during the last
year I might yet do as well as my brother Willie, and be as great an honour
to the school and everybody connected with it as he had been.
"This made me smile, for though I liked Willie, and knew he was a fairly
good scholar, I never for a moment regarded him as my equal in any
intellectual field. He knew all about football and cricket and studied the
school-books assiduously, whereas I read everything that pleased me, and
in my own opinion always went about 'crowned.'" Here he laughed
charmingly with amused deprecation of the conceit.
"It was only about the quality of the crown, Frank, that I was in any doubt.
If I had been offered the Triple Tiara, it would have appeared to me only
the meet reward of my extraordinary merit....
"When I came out from the doctor's I hurried to my friend to tell him all the
wonderful news. To my surprise he was cold and said, a little bitterly, I
thought:
"'You seem glad to go?'
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"'Glad to go,' I cried; 'I should think I was; fancy going to Trinity College,
Dublin, from this place; why, I shall meet men and not boys. Of course I
am glad, wild with delight; the first step to Oxford and fame.'
"'I mean,' my chum went on, still in the same cold way, 'you seem glad toleave me.'
"His tone startled me.
"'You silly fellow,' I exclaimed, 'of course not; I'm always glad to be with
you: but perhaps you will be coming up to Trinity too; won't you?'
"'I'm afraid not,' he said, 'but I shall come to Dublin frequently.'
"'Then we shall meet,' I remarked; 'you must come and see me in my
rooms. My father will give me a room to myself in our house, and you
know Merrion Square is the best part of Dublin. You must come and see
me.'
"He looked up at me with yearning, sad, regretful eyes. But the future was
beckoning to me, and I could not help talking about it, for the golden key of
wonderland was in my hand, and I was wild with desires and hopes.
"My friend was very silent, I remember, and only interrupted me to ask:
"'When do you go, Oscar?'
"'Early,' I replied thoughtlessly, or rather full of my own thoughts, 'earlyto-morrow morning, I believe; the usual train.'
"In the morning just as I was starting for the station, having said 'goodbye'
to everyone, he came up to me very pale and strangely quiet.
"'I'm coming with you to the station, Oscar,' he said; 'the Doctor gave me
permission, when I told him what friends we had been.'
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"'I'm glad,' I cried, my conscience pricking me that I had not thought of
asking for his company. 'I'm very glad. My last hours at school will always
be associated with you.'
"He just glanced up at me, and the glance surprised me; it was like a doglooks at one. But my own hopes soon took possession of me again, and I
can only remember being vaguely surprised by the appeal in his regard.
"When I was settled in my seat in the train, he did not say 'goodbye' and go,
and leave me to my dreams; but brought me papers and things and hung
about.
"The guard came and said:
"'Now, sir, if you are going.'
"I liked the 'Sir.' To my surprise my friend jumped into the carriage and
said:
"'All right, guard, I'm not going, but I shall slip out as soon as you whistle.'
"The guard touched his cap and went. I said something, I don't know what;
I was a little embarrassed.
"'You will write to me, Oscar, won't you, and tell me about everything?'
"'Oh, yes,' I replied, 'as soon as I get settled down, you know. There will be
such a lot to do at first, and I am wild to see everything. I wonder how theprofessors will treat me. I do hope they will not be fools or prigs; what a
pity it is that all professors are not poets....' And so I went on merrily, when
suddenly the whistle sounded and a moment afterwards the train began to
move.
"'You must go now,' I said to him.
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"'Yes,' he replied, in a queer muffled voice, while standing with his hand on
the door of the carriage. Suddenly he turned to me and cried:
"'Oh, Oscar,' and before I knew what he was doing he had caught my face
in his hot hands, and kissed me on the lips. The next moment he hadslipped out of the door and was gone....
"I sat there all shaken. Suddenly I became aware of cold, sticky drops
trickling down my face--his tears. They affected me strangely. As I wiped
them off I said to myself in amaze:
"'This is love: this is what he meant--love.'...
"I was trembling all over. For a long while I sat, unable to think, all shaken
with wonder and remorse."
CHAPTER III
Oscar Wilde did well at school, but he did still better at college, where thecompetition was more severe. He entered Trinity on October 19th, 1871,
just three days after his seventeenth birthday. Sir Edward Sullivan writes
me that when Oscar matriculated at Trinity he was already "a thoroughly
good classical scholar of a brilliant type," and he goes on to give an
invaluable snap-shot of him at this time; a likeness, in fact, the chief
features of which grew more and more characteristic as the years went on.
"He had rooms in College at the north side of one of the older squares,known as Botany Bay. These rooms were exceedingly grimy and ill-kept.
He never entertained there. On the rare occasions when visitors were
admitted, an unfinished landscape in oils was always on the easel, in a
prominent place in his sitting room. He would invariably refer to it, telling
one in his humorously unconvincing way that 'he had just put in the
butterfly.' Those of us who had seen his work in the drawing class presided
over by 'Bully' Wakeman at Portora were not likely to be deceived in the
matter....
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"His college life was mainly one of study; in addition to working for his
classical examinations, he devoured with voracity all the best English
writers.
"He was an intense admirer of Swinburne and constantly reading hispoems; John Addington Symond's works too, on the Greek authors, were
perpetually in his hands. He never entertained any pronounced views on
social, religious or political questions while in College; he seemed to be
altogether devoted to literary matters.
"He mixed freely at the same time in Dublin society functions of all kinds,
and was always a very vivacious and welcome guest at any house he cared
to visit. All through his Dublin University days he was one of the purestminded men that could be met with.
"He was not a card player, but would on occasions join in a game of limited
loo at some man's rooms. He was also an extremely moderate drinker. He
became a member of the junior debating society, the Philosophical, but
hardly ever took any part in their discussions.
[Illustration: Dr. Sir William Wilde]
"He read for the Berkeley medal (which he afterwards gained) with an
excellent, but at the same time broken-down, classical scholar, John
Townsend Mills, and, besides instruction, he contrived to get a good deal of
amusement out of his readings with his quaint teacher. He told me for
instance that on one occasion he expressed his sympathy for Mills on
seeing him come into his rooms wearing a tall hat completely covered incrape. Mills, however, replied, with a smile, that no one was dead--it was
only the evil condition of his hat that had made him assume so mournful a
disguise. I have often thought that the incident was still fresh in Oscar
Wilde's mind when he introduced John Worthing in 'The Importance of
Being Earnest,' in mourning for his fictitious brother....
"Shortly before he started on his first trip to Italy, he came into my rooms
in a very striking pair of trousers. I made some chaffing remark on them,
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but he begged me in the most serious style of which he was so excellent a
master not to jest about them.
"'They are my Trasimene trousers, and I mean to wear them there.'"
Already his humour was beginning to strike all his acquaintances, and what
Sir Edward Sullivan here calls his "puremindedness," or what I should
rather call his peculiar refinement of nature. No one ever heard Oscar
Wilde tell a suggestive story; indeed he always shrank from any gross or
crude expression; even his mouth was vowed always to pure beauty.
The Trinity Don whom I have already quoted about Oscar's school-days
sends me a rather severe critical judgment of him as a student. There issome truth in it, however, for in part at least it was borne out and
corroborated by Oscar's later achievement. It must be borne in mind that the
Don was one of his competitors at Trinity, and a successful one; Oscar's
mind could not limit itself to college tasks and prescribed books.
"When Oscar came to college he did excellently during the first year; he
was top of his class in classics; but he did not do so well in the long
examinations for a classical scholarship in his second year. He was placed
fifth, which was considered very good, but he was plainly not, the man for
the [Greek: dolichos] (or long struggle), though first-rate for a short
examination."
Oscar himself only completed these spirit-photographs by what he told me
of his life at Trinity.
"It was the fascination of Greek letters, and the delight I took in Greek life
and thought," he said to me once, "which made me a scholar. I got my love
of the Greek ideal and my intimate knowledge of the language at Trinity
from Mahaffy and Tyrrell; they were Trinity to me; Mahaffy was especially
valuable to me at that time. Though not so good a scholar as Tyrrell, he had
been in Greece, had lived there and saturated himself with Greek thought
and Greek feeling. Besides he took deliberately the artistic standpoint
towards everything, which was coming more and more to be my standpoint.
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He was a delightful talker, too, a really great talker in a certain way--an
artist in vivid words and eloquent pauses. Tyrrell, too, was very kind to
me--intensely sympathetic and crammed with knowledge. If he had known
less he would have been a poet. Learning is a sad handicap, Frank, an
appalling handicap," and he laughed irresistibly.
"What were the students like in Dublin?" I asked. "Did you make friends
with any of them?"
"They were worse even than the boys at Portora," he replied; "they thought
of nothing but cricket and football, running and jumping; and they varied
these intellectual exercises with bouts of fighting and drinking. If they had
any souls they diverted them with coarse amours among barmaids and thewomen of the streets; they were simply awful. Sexual vice is even coarser
and more loathsome in Ireland than it is in England:--
"'Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.'
"When I tried to talk they broke into my thought with stupid gibes and
jokes. Their highest idea of humour was an obscene story. No, no, Tyrrell
and Mahaffy represent to me whatever was good in Trinity."
In 1874 Oscar Wilde won the gold medal for Greek. The subject of the year
was "The Fragments of the Greek Comic Poets, as edited by Meineke." In
this year, too, he won a classical scholarship--a demyship of the annual
value of £95, which was tenable for five years, which enabled him to go to
Oxford without throwing an undue strain on his father's means.
He noticed with delight that his success was announced in the Oxford
University Gazette of July 11th, 1874. He entered Magdalen College,
Oxford, on October 17th, a day after his twentieth birthday.
Just as he had been more successful at Trinity than at school, so he was
destined to be far more successful and win a far greater reputation at
Oxford than in Dublin.
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He had the advantage of going to Oxford a little later than most men, at
twenty instead of eighteen, and thus was enabled to win high honours with
comparative ease, while leading a life of cultured enjoyment.
He was placed in the first class in "Moderations" in 1876 and had even thenmanaged to make himself talked about in the life of the place. The Trinity
Don whom I have already quoted, after admitting that there was not a
breath against his character either at school or Trinity, goes on to write that
"at Trinity he did not strike us as a very exceptional person," and yet there
must have been some sharp eyes at Trinity, for our Don adds with
surprising divination:
"I fancy his rapid development took place after he went to Oxford, wherehe was able to specialize more; in fact where he could study what he most
affected. It is, I feel sure, from his Oxford life more than from his life in
Ireland that one would be able to trace the good and bad features by which
he afterwards attracted the attention of the world."
In 1878 Oscar won a First Class in "Greats." In this same Trinity term,
1878, he further distinguished himself by gaining the Newdigate prize for
English verse with his poem "Ravenna," which he recited at the annual
Commemoration in the Sheldonian Theatre on June 26th. His reciting of
the poem was the literary event of the year in Oxford.
There had been great curiosity about him; he was said to be the best talker
of the day, and one of the ripest scholars. There were those in the
University who predicted an astonishing future for him, and indeed all
possibilities seemed within his reach. "His verses were listened to," said_The Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates' Journal_, "with rapt
attention." It was just the sort of thing, half poetry, half rhythmic rhetoric,
which was sure to reach the hearts and minds of youth. His voice, too, was
of beautiful tenor quality, and exquisitely used. When he sat down people
crowded to praise him and even men of great distinction in life flattered
him with extravagant compliments. Strange to say he used always to
declare that his appearance about the same time as Prince Rupert, at a fancy
dress ball, given by Mrs. George Morrell, at Headington Hill Hall, afforded
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him a far more gratifying proof of the exceptional position he had won.
"Everyone came round me, Frank, and made me talk. I hardly danced at all.
I went as Prince Rupert, and I talked as he charged but with more success,
for I turned all my foes into friends. I had the divinest evening; Oxfordmeant so much to me....
"I wish I could tell you all Oxford did for me.
"I was the happiest man in the world when I entered Magdalen for the first
time. Oxford--the mere word to me is full of an inexpressible, an
incommunicable charm. Oxford--the home of lost causes and impossible
ideals; Matthew Arnold's Oxford--with its dreaming spires and greycolleges, set in velvet lawns and hidden away among the trees, and about it
the beautiful fields, all starred with cowslips and fritillaries where the quiet
river winds its way to London and the sea.... The change, Frank, to me was
astounding; Trinity was as barbarian as school, with coarseness superadded.
If it had not been for two or three people, I should have been worse off at
Trinity than at Portora; but Oxford--Oxford was paradise to me. My very
soul seemed to expand within me to peace and joy. Oxford--the enchanted
valley, holding in its flowerlet cup all the idealism of the middle ages.[3]
Oxford is the capital of romance, Frank; in its own way as memorable as
Athens, and to me it was even more entrancing. In Oxford, as in Athens,
the realities of sordid life were kept at a distance. No one seemed to know
anything about money or care anything for it. Everywhere the aristocratic
feeling; one must have money, but must not bother about it. And all the
appurtenances of life were perfect: the food, the wine, the cigarettes; the
common needs of life became artistic symbols, our clothes even wonmeaning and significance. It was at Oxford I first dressed in knee breeches
and silk stockings. I almost reformed fashion and made modern dress
æsthetically beautiful; a second and greater reformation, Frank. What a pity
it is that Luther knew nothing of dress, had no sense of the becoming. He
had courage but no fineness of perception. I'm afraid his neckties would
always have been quite shocking!" and he laughed charmingly.
"What about the inside of the platter, Oscar?"
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"Ah, Frank, don't ask me, I don't know; there was no grossness, no
coarseness; but all delicate delights!
"'Fair passions and bountiful pities and loves without pain,'"[4]
and he laughed mischievously at the misquotation.
"Loves?" I questioned, and he nodded his head smiling; but would not be
drawn.
"All romantic and ideal affections. Every successive wave of youths from
the public schools brought some chosen spirits, perfectly wonderful
persons, the most graceful and fascinating disciples that a poet could desire,and I preached the old-ever-new gospel of individual revolt and individual
perfection. I showed them that sin with its curiosities widened the horizons
of life. Prejudices and prohibitions are mere walls to imprison the soul.
Indulgence may hurt the body, Frank, but nothing except suffering hurts the
spirit; it is self-denial and abstinence that maim and deform the soul."
"Then they knew you as a great talker even at Oxford?" I asked in some
surprise.
"Frank," he cried reprovingly, laughing at the same time delightfully, "I
was a great talker at school. I did nothing at Trinity but talk, my reading
was done at odd hours. I was the best talker ever seen in Oxford."
"And did you find any teacher there like Mahaffy?" I asked, "any professor
with a touch of the poet?"
He came to seriousness at once.
"There were two or three teachers, Frank," he replied, "greater than
Mahaffy; teachers of the world as well as of Oxford. There was Ruskin for
instance, who appealed to me intensely--a wonderful man and a most
wonderful writer. A sort of exquisite romantic flower; like a violet filling
the whole air with the ineffable perfume of belief. Ruskin has always
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seemed to me the Plato of England--a Prophet of the Good and True and
Beautiful, who saw as Plato saw that the three are one perfect flower. But it
was his prose I loved, and not his piety. His sympathy with the poor bored
me: the road he wanted us to build was tiresome. I could see nothing in
poverty that appealed to me, nothing; I shrank away from it as from adegradation of the spirit; but his prose was lyrical and rose on broad wings
into the blue. He was a great poet and teacher, Frank, and therefore of
course a most preposterous professor; he bored you to death when he
taught, but was an inspiration when he sang.
"Then there was Pater, Pater the classic, Pater the scholar, who had already
written the greatest English prose: I think a page or two of the greatest
prose in all literature. Pater meant everything to me. He taught me thehighest form of art: the austerity of beauty. I came to my full growth with
Pater. He was a sort of silent, sympathetic elder brother. Fortunately for me
he could not talk at all; but he was an admirable listener, and I talked to him
by the hour. I learned the instrument of speech with him, for I could see by
his face when I had said anything extraordinary. He did not praise me but
quickened me astonishingly, forced me always to do better than my
best--an intense vivifying influence, the influence of Greek art at its
supremest."
"He was the Gamaliel then?" I questioned, "at whose feet you sat?"
"Oh, no, Frank," he chided, "everyone sat at my feet even then. But Pater
was a very great man. Dear Pater! I remember once talking to him when we
were seated together on a bench under some trees in Oxford. I had been
watching the students bathing in the river: the beautiful white figures allgrace and ease and virile strength. I had been pointing out how Christianity
had flowered into romance, and how the crude Hebraic materialism and all
the later formalities of an established creed had fallen away from the tree of
life and left us the exquisite ideals of the new paganism....
"The pale Christ had been outlived: his renunciations and his sympathies
were mere weaknesses: we were moving to a synthesis of art where the
enchanting perfume of romance should be wedded to the severe beauty of
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classic form. I really talked as if inspired, and when I paused, Pater--the
stiff, quiet, silent Pater--suddenly slipped from his seat and knelt down by
me and kissed my hand. I cried:
"'You must not, you really must not. What would people think if they sawyou?'
"He got up with a white strained face.
"'I had to,' he muttered, glancing about him fearfully, 'I had to--once....'"
I must warn my readers that this whole incident is ripened and set in a
higher key of thought by the fact that Oscar told it more than ten years afterit happened.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Oscar was always fond of loosely quoting or paraphrasing in
conversation the purple passages from contemporary writers. He said them
exquisitely and sometimes his own embroidery was as good as the original.
This discipleship, however, always suggested to me a lack of originality. In
especial Matthew Arnold had an extraordinary influence upon him, almost
as great indeed as Pater.
[4] "Stain," not "pain," in the original.
CHAPTER IV
The most important event in Oscar's early life happened while he was still
an undergraduate at Oxford: his father, Sir William Wilde, died in 1876,
leaving to his wife, Lady Wilde, nearly all he possessed, some £7,000, the
interest of which was barely enough to keep her in genteel poverty. The
sum is so small that one is constrained to believe the report that Sir William
Wilde in his later years kept practically open house--"lashins of whisky and
a good larder," and was besides notorious for his gallantries. Oscar's small
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portion, a little money and a small house with some land, came to him in
the nick of time: he used the cash partly to pay some debts at Oxford, partly
to defray the expenses of a trip to Greece. It was natural that Oscar Wilde,
with his eager sponge-like receptivity, should receive the best academic
education of his time, and should better that by travel. We all get somethinglike the education we desire, and Oscar Wilde, it always seemed to me, was
over-educated, had learned, that is, too much from books and not enough
from life and had thought too little for himself; but my readers will be able
to judge of this for themselves.
In 1877 he accompanied Professor Mahaffy on a long tour through Greece.
The pleasure and profit Oscar got from the trip were so great that he failed
to return to Oxford on the date fixed. The Dons fined him forty-five poundsfor the breach of discipline; but they returned the money to him in the
following year when he won First Honours in "Greats" and the Newdigate
prize.
This visit to Greece when he was twenty-three confirmed the view of life
which he had already formed and I have indicated sufficiently perhaps in
that talk with Pater already recorded. But no one will understand Oscar
Wilde who for a moment loses sight of the fact that he was a pagan born: as
Gautier says, "One for whom the visible world alone exists," endowed with
all the Greek sensuousness and love of plastic beauty; a pagan, like
Nietzsche and Gautier, wholly out of sympathy with Christianity, one of
"the Confraternity of the faithless who cannot believe,"[5] to whom a sense
of sin and repentance are symptoms of weakness and disease.
Oscar used often to say that the chief pleasure he had in visiting Rome wasto find the Greek gods and the heroes and heroines of Greek story throned
in the Vatican. He preferred Niobe to the Mater Dolorosa and Helen to
both; the worship of sorrow must give place, he declared, to the worship of
the beautiful.
Another dominant characteristic of the young man may here find its place.
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While still at Oxford his tastes--the bent of his mind, and his
temperament--were beginning to outline his future. He spent his vacations
in Dublin and always called upon his old school friend Edward Sullivan in
his rooms at Trinity. Sullivan relates that when they met Oscar used to be
full of his occasional visits to London and could talk of nothing but theimpression made upon him by plays and players. From youth on the theatre
drew him irresistibly; he had not only all the vanity of the actor; but what
might be called the born dramatist's love for the varied life of the stage--its
paintings, costumings, rhetoric--and above all the touch of emphasis natural
to it which gives such opportunity for humorous exaggeration.
"I remember him telling me," Sullivan writes, "about Irving's 'Macbeth,'
which made a great impression on him; he was fascinated by it. He feared,however, that the public might be similarly affected--a thing which, he
declared, would destroy his enjoyment of an extraordinary performance."
He admired Miss Ellen Terry, too, extravagantly, as he admired Marion
Terry, Mrs. Langtry, and Mary Anderson later.
The death of Sir William Wilde put an end to the family life in Dublin, and
set the survivors free. Lady Wilde had lost her husband and her only
daughter in Merrion Square: the house was full of sad memories to her, she
was eager to leave it all and settle in London.
The Requiescat in Oscar's first book of poems was written in memory of
this sister who died in her teens, whom he likened to "a ray of sunshine
dancing about the house." He took his vocation seriously even in youth: he
felt that he should sing his sorrow, give record of whatever happened to
him in life. But he found no new word for his bereavement.
Willie Wilde came over to London and got employment as a journalist and
was soon given almost a free hand by the editor of the society paper The
World . With rare unselfishness, or, if you will, with Celtic clannishness, he
did a good deal to make Oscar's name known. Every clever thing that Oscar
said or that could be attributed to him, Willie reported in The World . This
puffing and Oscar's own uncommon power as a talker; but chiefly perhaps
a whispered reputation for strange sins, had thus early begun to form a sort
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of myth around him. He was already on the way to becoming a personage;
there was a certain curiosity about him, a flutter of interest in whatever he
did. He had published poems in the Trinity College magazine, Kottabos,
and elsewhere. People were beginning to take him at his own valuation as a
poet and a wit; and the more readily as that ambition did not clash in anyway with their more material strivings.
The time had now come for Oscar to conquer London as he had conquered
Oxford. He had finished the first class in the great World-School and was
eager to try the next, where his mistakes would be his only tutors and his
desires his taskmasters. His University successes flattered him with the
belief that he would go from triumph to triumph and be the exception
proving the rule that the victor in the academic lists seldom repeats hisvictories on the battlefield of life.
It is not sufficiently understood that the learning of Latin and Greek and the
forming of expensive habits at others' cost are a positive disability and
handicap in the rough-and-tumble tussle of the great city, where greed and
unscrupulous resolution rule, and where there are few prizes for feats of
memory or taste in words. When the graduate wins in life he wins as a rule
in spite of his so-called education and not because of it.
It is true that the majority of English 'Varsity men give themselves an
infinitely better education than that provided by the authorities. They
devote themselves to athletic sports with whole-hearted enthusiasm.
Fortunately for them it is impossible to develop the body without at the
same time steeling the will. The would-be athlete has to live laborious days;
he may not eat to his liking, nor drink to his thirst. He learns deep lessonsalmost unconsciously; to conquer his desires and make light of pain and
discomfort. He needs no Aristotle to teach him the value of habits; he is
soon forced to use them as defences against his pet weaknesses; above all
he finds that self-denial has its reward in perfect health; that the thistle pain,
too, has its flower. It is a truism that 'Varsity athletes generally succeed in
life, Spartan discipline proving itself incomparably superior to Greek
accidence.
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Oscar Wilde knew nothing of this discipline. He had never trained his body
to endure or his will to steadfastness. He was the perfect flower of
academic study and leisure. At Magdalen he had been taught luxurious
living, the delight of gratifying expensive tastes; he had been brought up
and enervated so to speak in Capua. His vanity had been full-fed withcloistered triumphs; he was at once pleasure-loving, vainly self-confident
and weak; he had been encouraged for years to give way to his emotions
and to pamper his sensations, and as the Cap-and-Bells of Folly to cherish a
fantastic code of honour even in mortal combat, while despising the
religion which might have given him some hold on the respect of his
compatriots. What chance had this cultured honour-loving Sybarite in the
deadly grapple of modern life where the first quality is will power, the only
knowledge needed a knowledge of the value of money. I must not beunderstood here as in any degree disparaging Oscar. I can surely state that a
flower is weaker than a weed without exalting the weed or depreciating the
flower.
The first part of life's voyage was over for Oscar Wilde; let us try to see
him as he saw himself at this time and let us also determine his true
relations to the world. Fortunately he has given us his own view of himself
with some care.
In Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, Oscar Wilde described himself on leaving
Oxford as a "Professor of Æsthetics, and a Critic of Art"--an announcement
to me at once infinitely ludicrous and pathetic. "Ludicrous" because it
betrays such complete ignorance of life all given over to men industrious
with muck-rakes: "Gadarene swine," as Carlyle called them, "busily
grubbing and grunting in search of pignuts." "Pathetic" for it is boldlyingenuous as youth itself with a touch of youthful conceit and exaggeration.
Another eager human soul on the threshold longing to find some suitable
high work in the world, all unwitting of the fact that ideal strivings are
everywhere despised and discouraged--jerry-built cottages for the million
being the day's demand and not oratories or palaces of art or temples for the
spirit.
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Not the time for a "professor of æsthetics," one would say, and assuredly
not the place. One wonders whether Zululand would not be more
favourable for such a man than England. Germany, France, and Italy have
many positions in universities, picture-galleries, museums, opera houses for
lovers of the beautiful, and above all an educated respect for artists andwriters just as they have places too for servants of Truth in chemical
laboratories and polytechnics endowed by the State with excellent results
even from the utilitarian point of view. But rich England has only a few
dozen such places in all at command and these are usually allotted with a
cynical contempt for merit; miserable anarchic England, soul-starved amid
its creature comforts, proving now by way of example to helots that man
cannot live by bread alone:--England and Oscar Wilde! the "Black
Country" and "the professor of æsthetics"--a mad world, my masters!
It is necessary for us now to face this mournful truth that in the quarrel
between these two the faults were not all on one side, mayhap England was
even further removed from the ideal than the would-be professor of
æsthetics, which fact may well give us pause and food for thought. Organic
progress we have been told; indeed, might have seen if we had eyes,
evolution so-called is from the simple to the complex; our rulers therefore
should have provided for the ever-growing complexity of modern life and
modern men. The good gardener will even make it his ambition to produce
new species; our politicians, however, will not take the trouble to give even
the new species that appear a chance of living; they are too busy, it appears,
in keeping their jobs.
No new profession has been organized in England since the Middle Ages.
In the meantime we have invented new arts, new sciences and new letters;when will these be organized and regimented in new and living professions,
so that young ingenuous souls may find suitable fields for their powers and
may not be forced willy-nilly to grub for pignuts when it would be more
profitable for them and for us to use their nobler faculties? Not only are the
poor poorer and more numerous in England than elsewhere; but there is
less provision made for the "intellectuals" too, consequently the organism is
suffering at both extremities. It is high time that both maladies were taken
in hand, for by universal consent England is now about the worst organized
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of all modern States, the furthest from the ideal.
Something too should be done with the existing professions to make them
worthy of honourable ambition. One of them, the Church, is a noble body
without a soul; the soul, our nostrils tell us, died some time ago, while themedical profession has got a noble spirit with a wretched half-organized
body. It says much for the inherent integrity and piety of human nature that
our doctors persist in trying to cure diseases when it is clearly to their
self-interest to keep their patients ailing--an anarchic world, this English
one, and stupefied with self-praise. What will this professor of Æsthetics
make of it?
Here he is, the flower of English University training, a winner of some of the chief academic prizes without any worthy means of earning a
livelihood, save perchance by journalism. And journalism in England
suffers from the prevailing anarchy. In France, Italy, and Germany
journalism is a career in which an eloquent and cultured youth may
honourably win his spurs. In many countries this way of earning one's
bread can still be turned into an art by the gifted and high-minded; but in
England thanks in the main to the anonymity of the press cunningly
contrived by the capitalist, the journalist or modern preacher is turned into a
venal voice, a soulless Cheapjack paid to puff his master's wares. Clearly
our "Professor of Æsthetics and Critic of Art" is likely to have a doleful
time of it in nineteenth century London.
Oscar had already dipped into his little patrimony, as we have seen, and he
could not conceal from himself that he would soon have to live on what he
could earn--a few pounds a week. But then he was a poet and hadboundless confidence in his own ability. To the artist nature the present is
everything; just for to-day he resolved that he would live as he had always
lived; so he travelled first class to London and bought all the books and
papers that could distract him on the way: "Give me the luxuries," he used
to say, "and anyone can have the necessaries."
In the background of his mind there were serious misgivings. Long
afterwards he told me that his father's death and the smallness of his
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patrimony had been a heavy blow to him. He encouraged himself, however,
at the moment by dwelling on his brother's comparative success and waved
aside fears and doubts as unworthy.
It is to his credit that at first he tried to cut down expenses and livelaborious days. He took a couple of furnished rooms in Salisbury Street off
the Strand, a very Grub Street for a man of fashion, and began to work at
journalism while getting together a book of poems for publication. His
journalism at first was anything but successful. It was his misfortune to
appeal only to the best heads and good heads are not numerous anywhere.
His appeal, too, was still academic and laboured. His brother Willie with
his commoner sympathies appeared to be better equipped for this work. But
Oscar had from the first a certain social success.
As soon as he reached London he stepped boldly into the limelight, going
to all "first nights" and taking the floor on all occasions. He was not only an
admirable talker but he was invariably smiling, eager, full of life and the
joy of living, and above all given to unmeasured praise of whatever and
whoever pleased him. This gift of enthusiastic admiration was not only his
most engaging characteristic, but also, perhaps, the chief proof of his
extraordinary ability. It was certainly, too, the quality which served him
best all through his life. He went about declaring that Mrs. Langtry was
more beautiful than the "Venus of Milo," and Lady Archie Campbell more
charming than Rosalind and Mr. Whistler an incomparable artist. Such
enthusiasm in a young and brilliant man was unexpected and delightful and
doors were thrown open to him in all sets. Those who praise passionately
are generally welcome guests and if Oscar could not praise he shrugged his
shoulders and kept silent; scarcely a bitter word ever fell from thosesmiling lips. No tactics could have been more successful in England than
his native gift of radiant good-humour and enthusiasm. He got to know not
only all the actors and actresses, but the chief patrons and frequenters of the
theatre: Lord Lytton, Lady Shrewsbury, Lady Dorothy Nevill, Lady de
Grey and Mrs. Jeune; and, on the other hand, Hardy, Meredith, Browning,
Swinburne, and Matthew Arnold--all Bohemia, in fact, and all that part of
Mayfair which cares for the things of the intellect.
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But though he went out a great deal and met a great many distinguished
people, and won a certain popularity, his social success put no money in his
purse. It even forced him to spend money; for the constant applause of his
hearers gave him self-confidence. He began to talk more and write less, and
cabs and gloves and flowers cost money. He was soon compelled tomortgage his little property in Ireland.
At the same time it must be admitted he was still indefatigably intent on
bettering his mind, and in London he found more original teachers than in
Oxford, notably Morris and Whistler. Morris, though greatly overpraised
during his life, had hardly any message for the men of his time. He went for
his ideals to an imaginary past and what he taught and praised was often
totally unsuited to modern conditions. Whistler on the other hand was amodern of the moderns, and a great artist to boot: he had not only
assimilated all the newest thought of the day, but with the alchemy of
genius had transmuted it and made it his own. Before even the de
Goncourts he had admired Chinese porcelain and Japanese prints and his
own exquisite intuition strengthened by Japanese example had shown that
his impression of life was more valuable than any mere transcript of it.
Modern art he felt should be an interpretation and not a representment of
reality, and he taught the golden rule of the artist that the half is usually
more expressive than the whole. He went about London preaching new
schemes of decoration and another Renaissance of art. Had he only been a
painter he would never have exercised an extraordinary influence; but he
was a singularly interesting appearance as well and an admirable talker
gifted with picturesque phrases and a most caustic wit.
Oscar sat at his feet and imbibed as much as he could of the new æstheticgospel. He even ventured to annex some of the master's most telling stories
and thus came into conflict with his teacher.
One incident may find a place here.
The art critic of The Times, Mr. Humphry Ward, had come to see an
exhibition of Whistler's pictures. Filled with an undue sense of his own
importance, he buttonholed the master and pointing to one picture said:
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thousand tea-tables. For one invitation he had received before, a dozen now
poured in; he became a celebrity.
Of course he was still sneered at by many as a mere _poseur_; it still
seemed to be all Lombard Street to a china orange that he would be beatendown under the myriad trampling feet of middle-class indifference and
disdain.
Some circumstances were in his favour. Though the artistic movement
inaugurated years before by the Pre-Raphaelites was still laughed at and
scorned by the many as a craze, a few had stood firm, and slowly the
steadfast minority had begun to sway the majority as is often the case in
democracies. Oscar Wilde profited by the victory of these art-lovingforerunners. Here and there among the indifferent public, men were
attracted by the artistic view of life and women by the emotional intensity
of the new creed. Oscar Wilde became the prophet of an esoteric cult. But
notoriety even did not solve the monetary question, which grew more and
more insistent. A dozen times he waved it aside and went into debt rather
than restrain himself. Somehow or other he would fall on his feet, he
thought. Men who console themselves in this way usually fall on someone
else's feet and so did Oscar Wilde. At twenty-six years of age and curiously
enough at the very moment of his insolent-bold challenge of the world with
fantastic dress, he stooped to ask his mother for money, money which she
could ill spare, though to do her justice she never wasted a second thought
on money where her affections were concerned, and she not only loved
Oscar but was proud of him. Still she could not give him much; the
difficulty was only postponed; what was to be done?
His vanity had grown with his growth; the dread of defeat was only a spur
to the society favourite; he cast about for some means of conquering the
Philistines, and could think of nothing but his book of poems. He had been
trying off and on for nearly a year to get it published. The publishers told
him roundly that there was no money in poetry and refused the risk. But the
notoriety of his knee-breeches and silken hose, and above all the continual
attacks in the society papers, came to his aid and his book appeared in the
early summer of 1881 with all the importance that imposing form, good
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paper, broad margins, and high price (10/6) could give it. The truth was, he
paid for the printing and production of the book himself, and David Bogue,
the publisher, put his name on for a commission.
Oscar had built high fantastic hopes on this book. To the very end of hislife he believed himself a poet and in the creative sense of the word he was
assuredly justified, but he meant it in the singing sense as well, and there
his claim can only be admitted with serious qualifications. But whether he
was a singer or not the hopes founded on this book were extravagant; he
expected to make not only reputation by it, but a large amount of money,
and money is not often made in England by poetry.
The book had an extraordinary success, greater, it may safely be said, thanany first book of real poetry has ever had in England or indeed is ever
likely to have: four editions were sold in a few weeks. Two of the Sonnets
in the book were addressed to Ellen Terry, one as "Portia," the other as
"Henrietta Maria"; and these partly account for the book's popularity, for
Miss Terry was delighted with them and praised the book and its author to
the skies.[6] I reproduce the "Henrietta Maria" sonnet here as a fair
specimen of the work:
QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA
In the lone tent, waiting for victory, She stands with eyes marred by the
mists of pain, Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain: The clamorous
clang of arms, the ensanguined sky, War's ruin, and the wreck of chivalry,
To her proud soul no common fear can bring: Bravely she tarrieth for her
Lord the King, Her soul aflame with passionate ecstasy. O Hair of Gold! OCrimson Lips! O Face! Made for the luring and the love of man! With thee
I do forget the toil and stress, The loveless road that knows no
resting-place, Time's straitened pulse, the soul's dread weariness, My
freedom and my life republican.
Lyric poetry is by its excellence the chief art of England, as music is the art
of Germany. A book of poetry is almost sure of fair appreciation in the
English press which does not trouble to notice a "Sartor Resartus" or the
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first essays of an Emerson. The excessive consideration given to Oscar's
book by the critics showed that already his personality and social success
had affected the reporters.
_The Athenæum_ gave the book the place of honour in its number for the23rd of July. The review was severe; but not unjust. "Mr. Wilde's volume
of poems," it says, "may be regarded as the evangel of a new creed. From
other gospels it differs in coming after, instead of before, the cult it seeks to
establish.... We fail to see, however, that the apostle of the new worship has
any distinct message."
The critic then took pains to prove that "nearly all the book is imitative" ...
and concluded: "Work of this nature has no element of endurance."
The Saturday Review dismissed the book at the end of an article on "Recent
Poetry" as "neither good nor bad." The reviewer objected in the English
fashion to the sensual tone of the poems; but summed up fairly enough:
"This book is not without traces of cleverness, but it is marred everywhere
by imitation, insincerity, and bad taste."
At the same time the notices in Punch were extravagantly bitter, while of
course the notices in The World , mainly written by Oscar's brother, were
extravagantly eulogistic. Punch declared that "Mr. Wilde may be æsthetic,
but he is not original ... a volume of echoes ... Swinburne and water."
Now what did _The Athenæum_ mean by taking a new book of imitative
verse so seriously and talking of it as the "evangel of a new creed," besides
suggesting that "it comes after the cult," and so forth?
It seems probable that _The Athenæum_ mistook Oscar Wilde for a
continuator of the Pre-Raphaelite movement with the sub-conscious and
peculiarly English suggestion that whatever is "æsthetic" or "artistic" is
necessarily weak and worthless, if not worse.
Soon after Oscar left Oxford Punch began to caricature him and ridicule the
cult of what it christened "The Too Utterly Utter." Nine Englishmen out of
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ten took delight in the savage contempt poured upon what was known
euphemistically as "the æsthetic craze" by the pet organ of the English
middle class.
This was the sort of thing Punch published under the title of "A Poet'sDay":
"Oscar at Breakfast! Oscar at Luncheon!! Oscar at Dinner!!! Oscar at
Supper!!!!"
"'You see I am, after all, mortal,' remarked the poet, with an ineffable
affable smile, as he looked up from an elegant but substantial dish of ham
and eggs. Passing a long willowy hand through his waving hair, he sweptaway a stray curl-paper, with the nonchalance of a D'Orsay.
"After this effort Mr. Wilde expressed himself as feeling somewhat faint;
and with a half apologetic smile ordered another portion of Ham and Eggs."
_Punch's_ verses on the subject were of the same sort, showing spite rather
than humour. Under the heading of "Sage Green" (by a fading-out Æsthete)
it published such stuff as this:
My love is as fair as a lily flower. (_The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!_)
Oh, bright are the blooms in her maiden bower. (_Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for
the sweet Sage Green!_)
* * * * *
And woe is me that I never may win; (_The Peacock blue has a sacred
sheen!_) For the Bard's hard up, and she's got no tin. (_Sing Hey! Sing Ho!
for the sweet Sage Green!_)
Taking the criticism as a whole it would be useless to deny that there is an
underlying assumption of vicious sensuality in the poet which is believed to
be reflected in the poetry. This is the only way to explain the condemnation
which is much more bitter than the verse deserves.
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The poems gave Oscar pocket money for a season; increased too his
notoriety; but did him little or no good with the judicious: there was not a
memorable word or a new cadence, or a sincere cry in the book. Still, first
volumes of poetry are as a rule imitative and the attempt, if inferior to
"Venus and Adonis," was not without interest.
Oscar was naturally disappointed with the criticism, but the sales
encouraged him and the stir the book made and he was as determined as
ever to succeed. What was to be done next?
FOOTNOTES:
[5] His own words in "De Profundis."
[6] In her "Recollections" Miss Terry says that she was more impressed by
the genius of Oscar Wilde and of Whistler than by that of any other men.
CHAPTER V
The first round in the battle with Fate was inconclusive. Oscar Wilde had
managed to get known and talked about and had kept his head above water
for a couple of years while learning something about life and more about
himself. On the other hand he had spent almost all his patrimony, had run
into some debt besides; yet seemed as far as ever from earning a decent
living. The outlook was disquieting.
Even as a young man Oscar had a very considerable understanding of life.He could not make his way as a journalist, the English did not care for his
poetry; but there was still the lecture-platform. In his heart he knew that he
could talk better than he wrote.
He got his brother to announce boldly in The World that owing to the
"astonishing success of his 'Poems' Mr. Oscar Wilde had been invited to
lecture in America."
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The invitation was imaginary; but Oscar had resolved to break into this new
field; there was money in it, he felt sure.
Besides he had another string to his bow. When the first rumblings of the
social storm in Russia reached England, our aristocratic republican seizedoccasion by the forelock and wrote a play on the Nihilist Conspiracy called
Vera. This drama was impregnated with popular English liberal sentiment.
With the interest of actuality about it Vera was published in September,
1880; but fell flat.
The assassination of the Tsar Alexander, however, in March, 1881; the way
Oscar's poems published in June of that year were taken up by Miss Terry
and puffed in the press, induced Mrs. Bernard Beere, an actress of somemerit, to accept Vera for the stage. It was suddenly announced that Vera
would be put on by Mrs. Bernard Beere at The Adelphi in December, '81;
but the author had to be content with this advertisement. December came
and went and Vera was not staged. It seemed probable to Oscar that it
might be accepted in America; at any rate, there could be no harm in trying:
he sailed for New York.
It was on the cards that he might succeed in his new adventure. The taste of
America in letters and art is still strongly influenced, if not formed, by
English taste, and, if Oscar Wilde had been properly accredited, it is
probable that his extraordinary gift of speech would have won him success
in America as a lecturer.
[Illustration: Oscar Wilde as He Appeared at Twenty-seven: on His First
Visit to America]
His phrase to the Revenue officers on landing: "I have nothing to declare
except my genius," turned the limelight full upon him and excited comment
and discussion all over the country. But the fuglemen of his caste whose
praise had brought him to the front in England were almost unrepresented
in the States, and never bold enough to be partisans. Oscar faced the
American Philistine public without his accustomed claque, and under these
circumstances a half-success was evidence of considerable power. His
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subjects were "The English Renaissance" and "House Decoration."
His first lecture at Chickering Hall on January 9, 1882, was so much talked
about that the famous impresario, Major Pond, engaged him for a tour
which, however, had to be cut short in the middle as a monetary failure.The Nation gave a very fair account of his first lecture: "Mr. Wilde is
essentially a foreign product and can hardly succeed in this country. What
he has to say is not new, and his extravagance is not extravagant enough to
amuse the average American audience. His knee-breeches and long hair are
good as far as they go; but Bunthorne has really spoiled the public for
Wilde."
The Nation underrated American curiosity. Oscar lectured some ninetytimes from January till July, when he returned to New York. The gross
receipts amounted to some £4,000: he received about £1,200, which left
him with a few hundreds above his expenses. His optimism regarded this as
a triumph.
One is fain to confess today that these lectures make very poor reading.
There is not a new thought in them; not even a memorable expression; they
are nothing but student work, the best passages in them being mere
paraphrases of Pater and Arnold, though the titles were borrowed from
Whistler. Dr. Ernest Bendz in his monograph on _The Influence of Pater
and Matthew Arnold in the Prose-Writings of Oscar Wilde_ has established
this fact with curious erudition and completeness.
Still, the lecturer was a fine figure of a man: his knee-breeches and silk
stockings set all the women talking, and he spoke with suave authority.Even the dullest had to admit that his elocution was excellent, and the
manner of speech is keenly appreciated in America. In some of the Eastern
towns, in New York especially, he had a certain success, the success of
sensation and of novelty, such success as every large capital gives to the
strange and eccentric.
In Boston he scored a triumph of character. Fifty or sixty Harvard students
came to his lecture dressed to caricature him in "swallow tail coats, knee
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breeches, flowing wigs and green ties. They all wore large lilies in their
buttonholes and each man carried a huge sunflower as he limped along."
That evening Oscar appeared in ordinary dress and went on with his lecture
as if he had not noticed the rudeness. The chief Boston paper gave him due
credit:
"Everyone who witnessed the scene on Tuesday evening must feel about it
very much as we do, and those who came to scoff, if they did not exactly
remain to pray, at least left the Music Hall with feelings of cordial liking,
and, perhaps to their own surprise, of respect for Oscar Wilde."[7]
As he travelled west to Louisville and Omaha his popularity dwined and
dwindled. Still he persevered and after leaving the States visited Canada,reaching Halifax in the autumn.
One incident must find a place here. On September 6 he sent £80 to Lady
Wilde. I have been told that this was merely a return of money she had
advanced; but there can be no doubt that Oscar, unlike his brother Willie,
helped his mother again and again most generously, though Willie was
always her favourite.
Oscar returned to England in April, 1883, and lectured to the Art Students
at their club in Golden Square. This at once brought about a break with
Whistler who accused him of plagiarism:--"Picking from our platters the
plums for the puddings he peddles in the provinces."
If one compares this lecture with Oscar's on "The English Renaissance of
Art," delivered in New York only a year before, and with Whistler'swell-known opinions, it is impossible not to admit that the charge was
justified. Such phrases as "artists are not to copy beauty but to create it ... a
picture is a purely decorative thing," proclaim their author.
The long newspaper wrangle between the two was brought to a head in
1885, when Whistler gave his famous _Ten o'clock_ discourse on Art. This
lecture was infinitely better than any of Oscar Wilde's. Twenty odd years
older than Wilde, Whistler was a master of all his resources: he was not
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only witty, but he had new views on art and original ideas. As a great artist
he knew that "there never was an artistic period. There never was an
Art-loving nation." Again and again he reached pure beauty of expression.
The masterly persiflage, too, filled me with admiration and I declared that
the lecture ranked with the best ever heard in London with Coleridge's onShakespeare and Carlyle's on Heroes. To my astonishment Oscar would not
admit the superlative quality of Whistler's talk; he thought the message
paradoxical and the ridicule of the professors too bitter. "Whistler's like a
wasp," he cried, "and carries about with him a poisoned sting." Oscar's
kindly sweet nature revolted against the disdainful aggressiveness of
Whistler's attitude. Besides, in essence, Whistler's lecture was an attack on
the academic theory taught in the universities, and defended naturally by a
young scholar like Oscar Wilde. Whistler's view that the artist wassporadic, a happy chance, a "sport," in fact, was a new view, and Oscar had
not yet reached this level; he reviewed the master in the Pall Mall Gazette,
a review remarkable for one of the earliest gleams of that genial humour
which later became his most characteristic gift: "Whistler," he said, "is
indeed one of the very greatest masters of painting in my opinion. And I
may add that in this opinion Mr. Whistler himself entirely concurs."
Whistler retorted in The World and Oscar replied, but Whistler had the best
of the argument.... "Oscar--the amiable, irresponsible, esurient Oscar--with
no more sense of a picture than of the fit of a coat, has the courage of the
opinions ... of others!"
It should be noted here that one of the bitterest of tongues could not help
doing homage to Oscar Wilde's "amiability": Whistler even preferred to call
him "amiable and irresponsible" rather than give his plagiarism a harsherattribute.
Oscar Wilde learned almost all he knew of art[8] and of controversy from
Whistler, but he was never more than a pupil in either field; for controversy
in especial he was poorly equipped: he had neither the courage, nor the
contempt, nor the joy in conflict of his great exemplar.
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Unperturbed by Whistler's attacks, Oscar went on lecturing about the
country on "Personal Impressions of America," and in August crossed
again to New York to see his play "Vera" produced by Marie Prescott at the
Union Square Theatre. It was a complete failure, as might have been
expected; the serious part of it was such as any talented young man mighthave written. Nevertheless I find in this play for the first time, a
characteristic gleam of humour, an unexpected flirt of wing, so to speak,
which, in view of the future, is full of promise. At the time it passed
unappreciated.
September, 1883, saw Oscar again in England. The platform gave him
better results than the theatre, but not enough for freedom or ease. It is the
more to his credit that as soon as he got a couple of hundred pounds ahead,he resolved to spend it in bettering his mind.
His longing for wider culture, and perhaps in part, the example of Whistler,
drove him to Paris. He put up at the little provincial Hotel Voltaire on the
Quai Voltaire and quickly made acquaintance with everyone of note in the
world of letters, from Victor Hugo to Paul Bourget. He admired Verlaine's
genius to the full but the grotesque physical ugliness of the man himself
(Verlaine was like a masque of Socrates) and his sordid and unclean way of
living prevented Oscar from really getting to know him. During this stay in
Paris Oscar read enormously and his French, which had been
school-boyish, became quite good. He always said that Balzac, and
especially his poet, Lucien de Rubempré, had been his teachers.
While in Paris he completed his blank-verse play, "The Duchess of Padua,"
and sent it to Miss Mary Anderson in America, who refused it, although shehad commissioned him, he always said, to write it. It seems to me inferior
even to "Vera" in interest, more academic and further from life, and when
produced in New York in 1891 it was a complete frost.
In a few months Oscar Wilde had spent his money and had skimmed the
cream from Paris, as he thought; accordingly he returned to London and
took rooms again, this time in Charles Street, Mayfair. He had learned
some rude lessons in the years since leaving Oxford, and the first and most
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impressive lesson was the fear of poverty. Yet his taking rooms in the
fashionable part of town showed that he was more determined than ever to
rise and not to sink.
It was Lady Wilde who urged him to take rooms near her; she neverdoubted his ultimate triumph. She knew all his poems by heart, took the
strass for diamonds and welcomed the chance of introducing her brilliant
son to the Irish Nationalist Members and other pinchbeck celebrities who
flocked about her.
It was about this time that I first saw Lady Wilde. I was introduced to her
by Willie, Oscar's elder brother, whom I had met in Fleet Street. Willie was
then a tall, well-made fellow of thirty or thereabouts with an expressivetaking face, lit up with a pair of deep blue laughing eyes. He had any
amount of physical vivacity, and told a good story with immense verve,
without for a moment getting above the commonplace: to him the
Corinthian journalism of The Daily Telegraph was literature. Still he had
the surface good nature and good humour of healthy youth and was
generally liked. He took me to his mother's house one afternoon; but first
he had a drink here and a chat there so that we did not reach the West End
till after six o'clock.
The room and its occupants made an indelible grotesque impression on me.
It seemed smaller than it was because overcrowded with a score of women
and half a dozen men. It was very dark and there were empty tea-cups and
cigarette ends everywhere. Lady Wilde sat enthroned behind the tea-table
looking like a sort of female Buddha swathed in wraps--a large woman
with a heavy face and prominent nose; very like Oscar indeed, with thesame sallow skin which always looked dirty; her eyes too were her
redeeming feature--vivacious and quick-glancing as a girl's. She "made up"
like an actress and naturally preferred shadowed gloom to sunlight. Her
idealism came to show as soon as she spoke. It was a necessity of her
nature to be enthusiastic; unfriendly critics said hysterical, but I should
prefer to say high-falutin' about everything she enjoyed or admired. She
was at her best in misfortune; her great vanity gave her a certain proud
stoicism which was admirable.
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The Land League was under discussion as we entered, and Parnell's attitude
to it. Lady Wilde regarded him as the predestined saviour of her country.
"Parnell," she said with a strong accent on the first syllable, "is the man of
destiny; he will strike off the fetters and free Ireland, and throne her as
Queen among the nations."
A murmur of applause came from a thin bird-like woman standing
opposite, who floated towards us clad in a sage-green gown, which
sheathed her like an umbrella case; had she had any figure the dress would
have been indecent.
"How like 'Speranza'!" she cooed, "dear Lady Wilde!" I noticed that her
glance went towards Willie, who was standing on the other side of hismother, talking to a tall, handsome girl. Willie's friend seemed amused at
the lyrical outburst of the green spinster, for smiling a little she questioned
him:
"'Speranza' is Lady Wilde?" she asked with a slight American accent.
Lady Wilde informed the company with all the impressiveness she had at
command that she did not expect Oscar that afternoon; "he is so busy with
his new poems, you know; they say there has been no such sensation since
Byron," she added; "already everyone is talking of them."
"Indeed, yes," sighed the green lily, "do you remember, dear Speranza,
what he said about 'The Sphinx,' that he read to us. He told us the written
verse was quite different from what the printed poem would be just as the
sculptor's clay model differs from the marble. Subtle, wasn't it?"
"Perfectly true, too!" cried a man, with a falsetto voice, moving into the
circle; "Leonardo himself might have said that."
The whole scene seemed to me affected and middle-class, untidy, too, with
an un-English note about it of shiftlessness; the æsthetic dresses were
extravagant, the enthusiasms pumped up and exaggerated. I was glad to
leave quietly.
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It was on this visit to Lady Wilde, or a later one, that I first heard of that
other poem of Oscar, "The Harlot's House," which was also said to have
been written in Paris. Though published in an obscure sheet and in itself
commonplace enough it made an astonishing stir. Time and advertisement
had been working for him. Academic lectures and imitative poetry alikehad made him widely known; and, thanks to the small body of enthusiastic
admirers whom I have already spoken of, his reputation instead of waning
out had grown like the Jinn when released from the bottle.
The fuglemen were determined to find something wonderful in everything
he did, and the title of "The Harlot's House," shocking Philistinism, gave
them a certain opportunity which they used to the uttermost. On all sides
one was asked: "Have you seen Oscar's latest?" And then the last versewould be quoted:--"Divine, don't ye think?"
"And down the long and silent street, The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl."
In spite of all this extravagant eulogy Oscar Wilde's early plays and poems,
like his lectures, were unimportant. The small remnant of people in
England who really love the things of the spirit were disappointed in them,
failed to find in them the genius so loudly and so arrogantly vaunted.
But, if Oscar Wilde's early writings were failures, his talk was more
successful than ever. He still tried to show off on all occasions and
sometimes fell flat in consequence; but his failures in this field were few
and merely comparative; constant practice was ripening his extraordinary
natural gift. About this time, too, he began to develop that humorous veinin conversation, which later lent a singular distinction to his casual
utterances.
His talk brought him numerous invitations to dinner and lunch and
introduced him to some of the best houses in London, but it produced no
money. He was earning very little and he needed money, comparatively
large sums of money, from week to week.
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Oscar Wilde was extravagant in almost every possible way. He wished to
be well-fed, well-dressed, well-wined, and prodigal of "tips." He wanted
first editions of the poets; had a liking for old furniture and old silver, for
fine pictures, Eastern carpets and Renascence bronzes; in fine, he had all
the artist's desires as well as those of the poet and viveur . He was constantlyin dire need of cash and did not hesitate to borrow fifty pounds from
anyone who would lend it to him. He was beginning to experience the truth
of the old verse:
'Tis a very good world to live in, To lend or to spend or to give in, But to
beg or to borrow or get a man's own, 'Tis the very worst world that ever
was known.
The difficulties of life were constantly increasing upon him. He despised
bread and butter and talked only of champagne and caviare; but without
bread, hunger is imminent. Victory no longer seemed indubitable. It was
possible, it began even to be probable that the fair ship of his fame might
come to wreck on the shoals of poverty.
It was painfully clear that he must do something without further delay, must
either conquer want or overleap it. Would he bridle his desires, live
savingly, and write assiduously till such repute came as would enable him
to launch out and indulge his tastes? He was wise enough to see the
advantages of such a course. Every day his reputation as a talker was
growing. Had he had a little more self-control, had he waited a little longer
till his position in society was secured, he could easily have married
someone with money and position who would have placed him above
sordid care and fear for ever. But he could not wait; he was colossally vain;he would wear the peacock's feathers at all times and all costs: he was
intensely pleasure-loving, too; his mouth watered for every fruit. Besides,
he couldn't write with creditors at the door. Like Bossuet he was unable to
work when bothered about small economies:--_s'il était à l'étroit dans son
domestique_.
What was to be done? Suddenly he cut the knot and married the daughter of
a Q.C., a Miss Constance Lloyd, a young lady without any particular
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qualities or beauty, whom he had met in Dublin on a lecture tour. Miss
Lloyd had a few hundreds a year of her own, just enough to keep the wolf
from the door. The couple went to live in Tite Street, Chelsea, in a modest
little house. The drawing-room, however, was decorated by Godwin and
quickly gained a certain notoriety. It was indeed a charming room with anartistic distinction and appeal of its own.
As soon as the dreadful load of poverty was removed, Oscar began to go
about a great deal, and his wife would certainly have been invited with him
if he had refused invitations addressed to himself alone; but from the
beginning he accepted them and consequently after the first few months of
marriage his wife went out but little, and later children came and kept her at
home. Having earned a respite from care by his marriage, Oscar did littlefor the next three years but talk. Critical observers began to make up their
minds that he was a talker and not a writer. "He was a power in the art," as
de Quincey said of Coleridge; "and he carried a new art into the power."
Every year this gift grew with him: every year he talked more and more
brilliantly, and he was allowed now, and indeed expected, to hold the table.
In London there is no such thing as conversation. Now and then one hears a
caustic or witty phrase, but nothing more. The tone of good society
everywhere is to be pleasant without being prominent. In every other
European country, however, able men are encouraged to talk; in England
alone they are discouraged. People in society use a debased jargon or slang,
snobbish shibboleths for the most part, and the majority resent any one man
monopolising attention. But Oscar Wilde was allowed this privileged
position, was encouraged to hold forth to amuse people, as singers are
brought in to sing after dinner.
Though his fame as a witty and delightful talker grew from week to week,
even his marriage did not stifle the undertone of dislike and disgust. Now
indignantly, now with contempt, men spoke of him as abandoned, a
creature of unnatural viciousness. There were certain houses in the best set
of London society the doors of which were closed to him.
[Illustration: Oscar Wilde]
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FOOTNOTES:
[7] By way of heaping coals of fire on the students' heads Oscar presented a
cast of the Hermes (then recently unearthed) to the University of Harvard.
[8] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross."
CHAPTER VI
From 1884 on I met Oscar Wilde continually, now at the theatre, now in
some society drawing room; most often, I think, at Mrs. Jeune's (afterwards
Lady St. Helier). His appearance was not in his favour; there wassomething oily and fat about him that repelled me. Naturally being
British-born and young I tried to give my repugnance a moral foundation;
fleshly indulgence and laziness, I said to myself, were written all over him.
The snatches of his monologues which I caught from time to time seemed
to me to consist chiefly of epigrams almost mechanically constructed of
proverbs and familiar sayings turned upside down. Two of Balzac's
characters, it will be remembered, practised this form of humour. Thedesire to astonish and dazzle, the love of the uncommon for its own sake,
was so evident that I shrugged my shoulders and avoided him. One
evening, however, at Mrs. Jeune's, I got to know him better. At the very
door Mrs. Jeune came up to me:
"Have you ever met Mr. Oscar Wilde? You ought to know him: he is so
delightfully clever, so brilliant!"
I went with her and was formally introduced to him. He shook hands in a
limp way I disliked; his hands were flabby, greasy; his skin looked bilious
and dirty. He wore a great green scarab ring on one finger. He was
over-dressed rather than well-dressed; his clothes fitted him too tightly; he
was too stout. He had a trick which I noticed even then, which grew on him
later, of pulling his jowl with his right hand as he spoke, and his jowl was
already fat and pouchy. His appearance filled me with distaste. I lay stress
on this physical repulsion, because I think most people felt it, and in itself,
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it is a tribute to the fascination of the man that he should have overcome the
first impression so completely and so quickly. I don't remember what we
talked about, but I noticed almost immediately that his grey eyes were
finely expressive; in turn vivacious, laughing, sympathetic; always
beautiful. The carven mouth, too, with its heavy, chiselled, purple-tingedlips, had a certain attraction and significance in spite of a black front tooth
which shocked one when he laughed. He was over six feet in height and
both broad and thick-set; he looked like a Roman Emperor of the
decadence.
We had a certain interest in each other, an interest of curiosity, for I
remember that he led the way almost at once into the inner drawing room in
order to be free to talk in some seclusion. After half an hour or so I askedhim to lunch next day at _The Café Royal_, then the best restaurant in
London.
At this time he was a superb talker, more brilliant than any I have ever
heard in England, but nothing like what he became later. His talk soon
made me forget his repellant physical peculiarities; indeed I soon lost sight
of them so completely that I have wondered since how I could have been so
disagreeably affected by them at first sight. There was an extraordinary
physical vivacity and geniality in the man, an extraordinary charm in his
gaiety, and lightning-quick intelligence. His enthusiasms, too, were
infectious. Every mental question interested him, especially if it had
anything to do with art or literature. His whole face lit up as he spoke and
one saw nothing but his soulful eyes, heard nothing but his musical tenor
voice; he was indeed what the French call a charmeur .
In ten minutes I confessed to myself that I liked him, and his talk was
intensely quickening. He had something unexpected to say on almost every
subject. His mind was agile and powerful and he took a delight in using it.
He was well-read too, in several languages, especially in French, and his
excellent memory stood him in good stead. Even when he merely
reproduced what the great writers had said perfectly, he added a new
colouring. And already his characteristic humour was beginning to illumine
every topic with lambent flashes.
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It was at our first lunch, I think, that he told me he had been asked by
Harper's to write a book of one hundred thousand words and offered a large
sum for it--I think some five thousand dollars--in advance. He wrote to
them gravely that there were not one hundred thousand words in English,
so he could not undertake the work, and laughed merrily like a child at thecheeky reproof.
"I have sent their letters and my reply to the press," he added, and laughed
again, while probing me with inquisitive eyes: how far did I understand the
need of self-advertisement?
About this time an impromptu of his moved the town to laughter. At some
dinner party it appeared the ladies sat a little too long; Oscar wanted tosmoke. Suddenly the hostess drew his attention to a lamp the shade of
which was smouldering.
"Please put it out, Mr. Wilde," she said, "it's smoking."
Oscar turned to do as he was told with the remark:
"Happy lamp!"
The delightful impertinence had an extraordinary success.
Early in our friendship I was fain to see that the love of the uncommon, his
paradoxes and epigrams were natural to him, sprang immediately from his
taste and temperament. Perhaps it would be well to define once for all his
attitude towards life with more scope and particularity than I have hithertodone.
It is often assumed that he had no clear and coherent view of life, no belief,
no faith to guide his vagrant footsteps; but such an opinion does him
injustice. He had his own philosophy, and held to it for long years with
astonishing tenacity. His attitude towards life can best be seen if he is held
up against Goethe. He took the artist's view of life which Goethe was the
first to state and indeed in youth had overstated with an astonishing
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persuasiveness: "the beautiful is more than the good," said Goethe; "for it
includes the good."
It seemed to Oscar, as it had seemed to young Goethe, that "the
extraordinary alone survives"; the extraordinary whether good or bad; hetherefore sought after the extraordinary, and naturally enough often fell into
the extravagant. But how stimulating it was in London, where sordid
platitudes drip and drizzle all day long, to hear someone talking brilliant
paradoxes.
Goethe did not linger long in the halfway house of unbelief; the murderer
may win notoriety as easily as the martyr, but his memory will not remain.
"The fashion of this world passeth away," said Goethe, "I would fainoccupy myself with that which endures." Midway in life Goethe accepted
Kant's moral imperative and restated his creed: "A man must resolve to
live," he said, "for the Good, and Beautiful, and for the Common Weal."
Oscar did not push his thought so far: the transcendental was not his field.
It was a pity, I sometimes felt, that he had not studied German as
thoroughly as French; Goethe might have done more for him than
Baudelaire or Balzac, for in spite of all his stodgy German faults, Goethe is
the best guide through the mysteries of life whom the modern world has yet
produced. Oscar Wilde stopped where the religion of Goethe began; he was
far more of a pagan and individualist than the great German; he lived for
the beautiful and extraordinary, but not for the Good and still less for the
Whole; he acknowledged no moral obligation; in commune bonis was an
ideal which never said anything to him; he cared nothing for the commonweal; he held himself above the mass of the people with an Englishman's
extravagant insularity and aggressive pride. Politics, social problems,
religion--everything interested him simply as a subject of art; life itself was
merely material for art. He held the position Goethe had abandoned in
youth.
The view was astounding in England and new everywhere in its
onesidedness. Its passionate exaggeration, however, was quickening, and
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there is, of course, something to be said for it. The artistic view of life is
often higher than the ordinary religious view; at least it does not deal in
condemnations and exclusions; it is more reasonable, more catholic, more
finely perceptive.
"The artist's view of life is the only possible one," Oscar used to say, "and
should be applied to everything, most of all to religion and morality.
Cavaliers and Puritans are interesting for their costumes and not for their
convictions....
"There is no general rule of health; it is all personal, individual.... I only
demand that freedom which I willingly concede to others. No one
condemns another for preferring green to gold. Why should any taste beostracised? Liking and disliking are not under our control. I want to choose
the nourishment which suits my body and my soul."
I can almost hear him say the words with his charming humorous smile and
exquisite flash of deprecation, as if he were half inclined to make fun of his
own statement.
It was not his views on art, however, which recommended him to the
aristocratic set in London; but his contempt for social reform, or rather his
utter indifference to it, and his English love of inequality. The
republicanism he flaunted in his early verses was not even skin deep; his
political beliefs and prejudices were the prejudices of the English
governing class and were all in favour of individual freedom, or anarchy
under the protection of the policeman.
"The poor are poor creatures," was his real belief, "and must always be
hewers of wood and drawers of water. They are merely the virgin soil out
of which men of genius and artists grow like flowers. Their function is to
give birth to genius and nourish it. They have no other _raison d'être_.
Were men as intelligent as bees, all gifted individuals would be supported
by the community, as the bees support their queen. We should be the first
charge on the state just as Socrates declared that he should be kept in the
Prytaneum at the public expense.
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"Don't talk to me, Frank, about the hardships of the poor. The hardships of
the poor are necessities, but talk to me of the hardships of men of genius,
and I could weep tears of blood. I was never so affected by any book in my
life as I was by the misery of Balzac's poet, Lucien de Rubempré."
Naturally this creed of an exaggerated individualism appealed peculiarly to
the best set in London. It was eminently aristocratic and might almost be
defended as scientific, for to a certain extent it found corroboration in
Darwinism. All progress according to Darwin comes from peculiar
individuals; "sports" as men of science call them, or the "heaven-sent" as
rhetoricians prefer to style them. The many are only there to produce more
"sports" and ultimately to benefit by them. All this is valid enough; but it
leaves the crux of the question untouched. The poor in aristocratic Englandare too degraded to produce "sports" of genius, or indeed any "sports" of
much value to humanity. Such an extravagant inequality of condition
obtains there that the noble soul is miserable, the strongest insecure. But
Wilde's creed was intensely popular with the "Smart Set" because of its
very one-sidedness, and he was hailed as a prophet partly because he
defended the cherished prejudices of the "landed" oligarchy.
It will be seen from this that Oscar Wilde was in some danger of suffering
from excessive popularity and unmerited renown. Indeed if he had loved
athletic sports, hunting and shooting instead of art and letters, he might
have been the selected representative of aristocratic England.
In addition to his own popular qualities a strong current was sweeping him
to success. He was detested by the whole of the middle or shop-keeping
class which in England, according to Matthew Arnold, has "the sense of conduct--and has but little else." This class hated and feared him; feared
him for his intellectual freedom and his contempt of conventionality, and
hated him because of his light-hearted self-indulgence, and also because it
saw in him none of its own sordid virtues. Punch is peculiarly the
representative of this class and of all English prejudices, and Punch jeered
at him now in prose, now in verse, week after week. Under the heading,
"More Impressions" (by Oscuro Wildgoose) I find this:
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"My little fancy's clogged with gush, My little lyre is false in tone, And
when I lyrically moan, I hear the impatient critic's 'Tush!'
"But I've 'Impressions.' These are grand! Mere dabs of words, mere blobs
of tint, Displayed on canvas or in print, Men laud, and think theyunderstand.
"A smudge of brown, a smear of yellow, No tale, no subject,--there you
are! Impressions!--and the strangest far Is--that the bard's a clever fellow."
A little later these lines appeared:
"My languid lily, my lank limp lily, My long, lithe lily-love, men maygrin-- Say that I'm soft and supremely silly-- What care I, while you
whisper still; What care I, while you smile? Not a pin! While you smile,
while you whisper-- 'Tis sweet to decay! I have watered with chlorodine,
tears of chagrin, The churchyard mould I have planted thee in, Upside
down, in an intense way, In a rough red flower-pot, sweeter than sin, That I
bought for a halfpenny, yesterday!"
The italics are mine; but the suggestion was always implicit; yet this
constant wind of puritanic hatred blowing against him helped instead of
hindering his progress: strong men are made by opposition; like kites they
go up against the wind.
CHAPTER VII
"Believe me, child, all the gentleman's misfortunes arose from his being
educated at a public school...."--FIELDING.
In England success is a plant of slow growth. The tone of good society,
though responsive to political talent, and openly, eagerly sensitive to
money-making talent, is contemptuous of genius and rates the utmost
brilliancy of the talker hardly higher than the feats of an acrobat. Men are
obstinate, slow, trusting a bank-balance rather than brains; and giving way
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reluctantly to sharp-witted superiority. The road up to power or influence in
England is full of pitfalls and far too arduous for those who have neither
high birth nor wealth to help them. The natural inequality of men instead of
being mitigated by law or custom is everywhere strengthened and increased
by a thousand effete social distinctions. Even in the best class where acertain easy familiarity reigns there is circle above circle, and the summits
are isolated by heredity.
The conditions of English society being what they are, it is all but
impossible at first to account for the rapidity of Oscar Wilde's social
success; yet if we tell over his advantages and bring one or two into the
account which have not yet been reckoned, we shall find almost every
element that conduces to popularity. By talent and conviction he was thenatural pet of the aristocracy whose selfish prejudices he defended and
whose leisure he amused. The middle class, as has been noted, disliked and
despised him: but its social influence is small and its papers, and especially
Punch, made him notorious by attacking him in and out of season. The
comic weekly, indeed, helped to build up his reputation by the almost
inexplicable bitterness of its invective.
Another potent force was in his favour. From the beginning he set himself
to play the game of the popular actor, and neglected no opportunity of
turning the limelight on his own doings. As he said, his admiration of
himself was "a lifelong devotion," and he proclaimed his passion on the
housetops.
Our names happened to be mentioned together once in some paper, I think
it was The Pall Mall Gazette. He asked me what I was going to reply.
"Nothing," I answered, "why should I bother? I've done nothing yet that
deserves trumpeting."
"You're making a mistake," he said seriously. "If you wish for reputation
and fame in this world, and success during your lifetime, you ought to seize
every opportunity of advertising yourself. You remember the Latin word,
'Fame springs from one's own house.' Like other wise sayings, it's not quite
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true; fame comes from oneself," and he laughed delightedly; "you must go
about repeating how great you are till the dull crowd comes to believe it."
"The prophet must proclaim himself, eh? and declare his own mission?"
"That's it," he replied with a smile; "that's it.
"Every time my name is mentioned in a paper, I write at once to admit that
I am the Messiah. Why is Pears' soap successful? Not because it is better or
cheaper than any other soap, but because it is more strenuously puffed. The
journalist is my 'John the Baptist.' What would you give, when a book of
yours comes out, to be able to write a long article drawing attention to it in
_The Pall Mall Gazette_? Here you have the opportunity of making yourname known just as widely; why not avail yourself of it? I miss no chance,"
and to do him justice he used occasion to the utmost.
Curiously enough Bacon had the same insight, and I have often wondered
since whether Oscar's worldly wisdom was original or was borrowed from
the great Elizabethan climber. Bacon says:
"'Boldly sound your own praises and some of them will stick.'... It will stick
with the more ignorant and the populace, though men of wisdom may smile
at it; and the reputation won with many will amply countervail the disdain
of a few.... And surely no small number of those who are of solid nature,
and who, from the want of this ventosity, cannot spread all sail in pursuit of
their own honour, suffer some prejudice and lose dignity by their
moderation."
Many of Oscar's letters to the papers in these years were amusing, some of
them full of humour. For example, when he was asked to give a list of the
hundred best books, as Lord Avebury and other mediocrities had done, he
wrote saying that "he could not give a list of the hundred best books, as he
had only written five."
Winged words of his were always passing from mouth to mouth in town.
Some theatre was opened which was found horribly ugly: one spoke of it as
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"Early Victorian."
"No, no," replied Oscar, "nothing so distinctive. 'Early Maple,' rather."
Even his impertinences made echoes. At a great reception, a friend askedhim in passing, how the hostess, Lady S----, could be recognised. Lady
S---- being short and stout, Oscar replied, smiling:
"Go through this room, my dear fellow, and the next and so on till you
come to someone looking like a public monument, say the effigy of
Britannia or Victoria--that's Lady S----."
Though he used to pretend that all this self-advertisement was premeditatedand planned, I could hardly believe him. He was eager to write about
himself because of his exaggerated vanity and reflection afterwards found
grounds to justify his inclination. But whatever the motive may have been
the effect was palpable: his name was continually in men's mouths, and his
fame grew by repetition. As Tiberius said of Mucianus:
"_Omnium quæ dixerat feceratque, arte quadam ostentator_" (He had a
knack of showing off and advertising whatever he said or did).
But no personal qualities, however eminent, no gifts, no graces of heart or
head or soul could have brought a young man to Oscar Wilde's social
position and popularity in a few years.
Another cause was at work lifting him steadily. From the time he left
Oxford he was acclaimed and backed by a small minority of passionateadmirers whom I have called his fuglemen. These admirers formed the
constant factor in his progress from social height to height. For the most
part they were persons usually called "sexual inverts," who looked to the
brilliancy of his intellect to gild their esoteric indulgence. This class in
England is almost wholly recruited from the aristocracy and the upper
middle-class that apes the "smart set." It is an inevitable product of the
English boarding school and University system; indeed one of the most
characteristic products. I shall probably bring upon myself a host of
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enemies by this assertion, but it has been weighed and must stand. Fielding
has already put the same view on record: he says:
"A public school, Joseph, was the cause of all the calamities which he
afterwards suffered. Public schools are the nurseries of all vice andimmorality. All the wicked fellows whom I remember at the University
were bred at them...."
If boarding-school life with its close intimacies between boys from twelve
to eighteen years of age were understood by English mothers, it is safe to
say that every boarding-house in every school would disappear in a single
night, and Eton, Harrow, Winchester and the rest would be turned into
day-schools.
Those who have learned bad habits at school or in the 'Varsity are inclined
to continue the practices in later life. Naturally enough these men are
usually distinguished by a certain artistic sympathy, and often by most
attractive, intellectual qualities. As a rule the epicene have soft voices and
ingratiating manners, and are bold enough to make a direct appeal to the
heart and emotions; they are considered the very cream of London society.
These admirers and supporters praised and defended Oscar Wilde from the
beginning with the persistence and courage of men who if they don't hang
together are likely to hang separately. After his trial and condemnation The
Daily Telegraph spoke with contempt of these "decadents" and "æsthetes"
who, it asserted, "could be numbered in London society on the fingers of
one hand"; but even The Daily Telegraph must have known that in the
"smart set" alone there are hundreds of these acolytes whose intellectualand artistic culture gives them an importance out of all proportion to their
number. It was the passionate support of these men in the first place which
made Oscar Wilde notorious and successful.
This fact may well give pause to the thoughtful reader. In the middle ages,
when birth and position had a disproportionate power in life, the Catholic
Church supplied a certain democratic corrective to the inequality of social
conditions. It was a sort of "Jacob's Ladder" leading from the lowest strata
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of society to the very heavens and offering to ingenuous, youthful talent a
career of infinite hope and unlimited ambition. This great power of the
Roman Church in the middle-ages may well be compared to the influence
exerted by those whom I have designated as Oscar Wilde's fuglemen in the
England of today. The easiest way to success in London society is to benotorious in this sense. Whatever career one may have chosen, however
humble one's birth, one is then certain of finding distinguished friends and
impassioned advocates. If you happen to be in the army and unmarried, you
are declared to be a strategist like Cæsar, or an organizer like Moltke; if
you are an artist, instead of having your faults proclaimed and your failings
scourged, your qualifications are eulogised and you find yourself compared
to Michel Angelo or Titian! I would not willingly exaggerate here; but I
could easily give dozens of instances to prove that sexual perversion is a"Jacob's Ladder" to most forms of success in our time in London.
It seems a curious effect of the great compensatory balance of things that a
masculine rude people like the English, who love nothing so much as
adventures and warlike achievements, should allow themselves to be
steered in ordinary times by epicene æsthetes. But no one who knows the
facts will deny that these men are prodigiously influential in London in all
artistic and literary matters, and it was their constant passionate support
which lifted Oscar Wilde so quickly to eminence.
From the beginning they fought for him. He was regarded as a leader
among them when still at Oxford. Yet his early writings show no trace of
such a prepossession; they are wholly void of offence, without even a
suggestion of coarseness, as pure indeed as his talk. Nevertheless, as soon
as his name came up among men in town, the accusation of abnormalviciousness was either made or hinted. Everyone spoke as if there were no
doubt about his tastes, and this in spite of the habitual reticence of
Englishmen. I could not understand how the imputation came to be so bold
and universal; how so shameful a calumny, as I regarded it, was so firmly
established in men's minds. Again and again I protested against the
injustice, demanded proofs; but was met only by shrugs and pitying glances
as if my prejudice must indeed be invincible if I needed evidence of the
obvious.
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and Tristan, after years of meditation in Switzerland.
This period for Oscar Wilde began with his marriage; the freedom from
sordid anxieties allowed him to lift up his head and be himself. Kepler, I
think, it is who praises poverty as the foster-mother of genius; but BernardPalissy was nearer the truth when he said:--_Pauvreté empêche bons esprits
de parvenir_ (poverty hinders fine minds from succeeding). There is no
such mortal enemy of genius as poverty except riches: a touch of the spur
from time to time does good; but a constant rowelling disables. As editor of
_The Woman's World_ Oscar had some money of his own to spend.
Though his salary was only some six pounds a week, it made him
independent, and his editorial work gave him an excuse for not exhausting
himself by writing. For some years after marriage; in fact, till he lost hiseditorship, he wrote little and talked a great deal.
During this period we were often together. He lunched with me once or
twice a week and I began to know his method of work. Everything came to
him in the excitement of talk, epigrams, paradoxes and stories; and when
people of great position or title were about him he generally managed to
surpass himself: all social distinctions appealed to him intensely. I chaffed
him about this one day and he admitted the snobbishness gaily.
"I love even historic names, Frank, as Shakespeare did. Surely everyone
prefers Norfolk, Hamilton and Buckingham to Jones or Smith or
Robinson."
As soon as he lost his editorship he took to writing for the reviews; his
articles were merely the _résumé_ of his monologues. After talking formonths at this and that lunch and dinner he had amassed a store of
epigrams and humorous paradoxes which he could embody in a paper for
The Fortnightly Review or The Nineteenth Century.
These papers made it manifest that Wilde had at length, as Heine phrased it,
reached the topmost height of the culture of his time and was now able to
say new and interesting things. His Lehrjahre or student-time may be said
to have ended with his editorship. The articles which he wrote on "The
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Decay of Lying," "The Critic as Artist," and "Pen, Pencil and Poison"; in
fact, all the papers which in 1891 were gathered together and published in
book form under the title of "Intentions," had about them the stamp of
originality. They achieved a noteworthy success with the best minds, and
laid the foundation of his fame. Every paper contained, here and there, ahappy phrase, or epigram, or flirt of humour, which made it memorable to
the lover of letters.
They were all, however, conceived and written from the standpoint of the
artist, and the artist alone, who never takes account of ethics, but uses right
and wrong indifferently as colours of his palette. "The Decay of Lying"
seemed to the ordinary, matter-of-fact Englishman a cynical plea in defence
of mendacity. To the majority of readers, "Pen, Pencil and Poison" washardly more than a shameful attempt to condone cold-blooded murder. The
very articles which grounded his fame as a writer, helped to injure his
standing and repute.
In 1889 he published a paper which did him even more damage by
appearing to justify the peculiar rumours about his private life. He held the
opinion, which was universal at that time, that Shakespeare had been
abnormally vicious. He believed with the majority of critics that Lord
William Herbert was addressed in the first series of Sonnets; but his fine
sensibility or, if you will, his peculiar temperament, led him to question
whether Thorpe's dedication to "Mr. W.H." could have been addressed to
Lord William Herbert. He preferred the old hypothesis that the dedication
was addressed to a young actor named Mr. William Hughes, a supposition
which is supported by a well-known sonnet. He set forth this idea with
much circumstance and considerable ingenuity in an article which he sentto me for publication in The Fortnightly Review. The theme was scabrous;
but his treatment of it was scrupulously reserved and adroit and I saw no
offence in the paper, and to tell the truth, no great ability in his handling of
the subject.[9]
He had talked over the article with me while he was writing it, and I told
him that I thought the whole theory completely mistaken. Shakespeare was
as sensual as one could well be; but there was no evidence of abnormal
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vice; indeed, all the evidence seemed to me to be against this universal
belief. The assumption that the dedication was addressed to Lord William
Herbert I had found it difficult to accept, at first; the wording of it is not
only ambiguous but familiar. If I assumed that "Mr. W.H." was meant for
Lord William Herbert, it was only because that seemed the easiest way outof the maze. In fine, I pointed out to Oscar that his theory had very little
that was new in it, and more that was untrue, and advised him not to
publish the paper. My conviction that Shakespeare was not abnormally
vicious, and that the first series of Sonnets proved snobbishness and
toadying and not corrupt passion, seemed to Oscar the very madness of
partisanship.
He smiled away my arguments, and sent his paper to the Fortnightly officewhen I happened to be abroad. Much to my chagrin, my assistant rejected it
rudely, whereupon Oscar sent it to Blackwoods, who published it in their
magazine. It set everyone talking and arguing. To judge by the discussion it
created, the wind of hatred and of praise it caused, one would have thought
that the paper was a masterpiece, though in truth it was nothing out of the
common. Had it been written by anybody else it would have passed
unnoticed. But already Oscar Wilde had a prodigious notoriety, and all his
sayings and doings were eagerly canvassed from one end of society to the
other.
"The Portrait of Mr. W.H." did Oscar incalculable injury. It gave his
enemies for the first time the very weapon they wanted, and they used it
unscrupulously and untiringly with the fierce delight of hatred. Oscar
seemed to revel in the storm of conflicting opinions which the paper called
forth. He understood better than most men that notoriety is often theforerunner of fame and is always commercially more valuable. He rubbed
his hands with delight as the discussion grew bitter, and enjoyed even the
sneering of the envious. A wind that blows out a little fire, he knew, plays
bellows to a big one. So long as people talked about him, he didn't much
care what they said, and they certainly talked interminably about everything
he wrote.
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The inordinate popular success increased his self-confidence, and with time
his assurance took on a touch of defiance. The first startling sign of this
gradual change was the publication in _Lippincott's Magazine_ of "The
Picture of Dorian Gray." It was attacked immediately in The Daily
Chronicle, a liberal paper usually distinguished for a certain leaning infavour of artists and men of letters, as a "tale spawned from the leprous
literature of the French _decadents_--a poisonous book, the atmosphere of
which is heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual
putrefaction."
Oscar as a matter of course replied and the tone of his reply is characteristic
of his growth in self-assurance: he no longer dreads the imputation of
viciousness; he challenges it: "It is poisonous, if you like; but you cannotdeny that it is also perfect, and perfection is what we artists aim at."
When Oscar republished "The Picture of Dorian Gray" in book form in
April, 1891, he sent me a large paper copy and with the copy he wrote a
little note, asking me to tell him what I thought of the book. I got the
volume and note early one morning and read the book until noon. I then
sent him a note by hand: "Other men," I wrote, "have given us wine; some
claret, some burgundy, some Moselle; you are the first to give us pure
champagne. Much of this book is wittier even than Congreve and on an
equal intellectual level: at length, it seems to me, you have justified
yourself."
Half an hour later I was told that Oscar Wilde had called. I went down
immediately to see him. He was bubbling over with content.
"How charming of you, Frank," he cried, "to have written me such a divine
letter."
"I have only read a hundred pages of the book," I said; "but they are
delightful: no one now can deny you a place among the wittiest and most
humorous writers in English."
"How wonderful of you, Frank; what do you like so much?"
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Like all artists, he loved praise and I was enthusiastic, happy to have the
opportunity of making up for some earlier doubting that now seemed
unworthy:
"Whatever the envious may say, you're with Burke and Sheridan, amongthe very ablest Irishmen....
"Of course I have heard most of the epigrams from you before, but you
have put them even better in this book."
"Do you think so, really?" he asked, smiling with pleasure.
It is worth notice that some of the epigrams in "Dorian Gray" were betteredagain before they appeared in his first play. For example, in "Dorian Gray"
Lord Henry Wotton, who is peculiarly Oscar's mouthpiece, while telling
how he had to bargain for a piece of old brocade in Wardour Street, adds,
"nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing."
In "Lady Windermere's Fan" the same epigram is perfected, "The cynic is
one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
Nearly all the literary productions of our time suffer from haste: one must
produce a good deal, especially while one's reputation is in the making, in
order to live by one's pen. Yet great works take time to form, and fine
creations are often disfigured by the stains of hurried parturition. Oscar
Wilde contrived to minimise this disability by talking his works before
writing them.
The conversation of Lord Henry Wotton with his uncle, and again at lunchwhen he wishes to fascinate Dorian Gray, is an excellent reproduction of
Oscar's ordinary talk. The uncle wonders why Lord Dartmoor wants to
marry an American and grumbles about her people: "Has she got any?"
Lord Henry shook his head. "American girls are as clever at concealing
their parents as English women are at concealing their past," he said, rising
to go.
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"They are pork-packers, I suppose?"
"I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake. I am told that pork-packing
is the most lucrative profession in America, after politics."
All this seems to me delightful humour.
The latter part of the book, however, tails off into insignificance. The first
hundred pages held the result of months and months of Oscar's talk, the
latter half was written offhand to complete the story. "Dorian Gray" was the
first piece of work which proved that Oscar Wilde had at length found his
true vein.
A little study of it discovers both his strength and his weakness as a writer.
The initial idea of the book is excellent, finer because deeper than the
commonplace idea that is the foundation of Balzac's "Peau de Chagrin,"
though it would probably never have been written if Balzac had not written
his book first; but Balzac's sincerity and earnestness grapple with the theme
and wring a blessing out of it, whereas the subtler idea in Oscar's hands
dwindles gradually away till one wonders if the book would not have been
more effective as a short story. Oscar did not know life well enough or care
enough for character to write a profound psychological study: he was at his
best in a short story or play.
One day about this time Oscar first showed me the aphorisms he had
written as an introduction to "Dorian Gray." Several of them I thought
excellent; but I found that Oscar had often repeated himself. I cut these
repetitions out and tried to show him how much better the dozen best werethan eighteen of which six were inferior. I added that I should like to
publish the best in "The Fortnightly." He thanked me and said it was very
kind of me.
Next morning I got a letter from him telling me that he had read over my
corrections and thought that the aphorisms I had rejected were the best, but
he hoped I'd publish them as he had written them.
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Naturally I replied that the final judgment must rest with him and I
published them at once.
The delight I felt in his undoubted genius and success was not shared by
others. Friends took occasion to tell me that I should not go about withOscar Wilde.
"Why not?" I asked.
"He has a bad name," was the reply. "Strange things are said about him. He
came down from Oxford with a vile reputation. You have only got to look
at the man."
"Whatever the disease may be," I replied, "it's not catching--unfortunately."
The pleasure men take in denigration of the gifted is one of the puzzles of
life to those who are not envious.
Men of letters, even people who ought to have known better, were slow to
admit his extraordinary talent; he had risen so quickly, had been puffed into
such prominence that they felt inclined to deny him even the gifts which he
undoubtedly possessed. I was surprised once to find a friend of mine taking
this attitude: Francis Adams, the poet and writer, chaffed me one day about
my liking for Oscar.
"What on earth can you see in him to admire?" he asked. "He is not a great
writer, he is not even a good writer; his books have no genius in them; his
poetry is tenth rate, and his prose is not much better. His talk even isfictitious and extravagant."
I could only laugh at him and advise him to read "The Picture of Dorian
Gray."
This book, however, gave Oscar's puritanic enemies a better weapon
against him than even "The Portrait of Mr. W.H." The subject, they
declared, was the same as that of "Mr. W.H.," and the treatment was simply
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loathsome. More than one middle-class paper, such as _To-Day_ in the
hands of Mr. Jerome K. Jerome, condemned the book as "corrupt," and
advised its suppression. Freedom of speech in England is more feared than
licence of action: a speck on the outside of the platter disgusts your puritan,
and the inside is never peeped at, much less discussed.
Walter Pater praised "Dorian Gray" in the _Bookman_; but thereby only
did himself damage without helping his friend. Oscar meanwhile went
about boldly, meeting criticism now with smiling contempt.
One incident from this time will show how unfairly he was being judged
and how imprudent he was to front defamation with defiance.
One day I met a handsome youth in his company named John Gray, and I
could not wonder that Oscar found him interesting, for Gray had not only
great personal distinction, but charming manners and a marked poetic gift,
a much greater gift than Oscar possessed. He had besides an eager, curious
mind, and of course found extraordinary stimulus in Oscar's talk. It seemed
to me that intellectual sympathy and the natural admiration which a
younger man feels for a brilliant senior formed the obvious bond between
them. But no sooner did Oscar republish "Dorian Gray" than ill-informed
and worse-minded persons went about saying that the eponymous hero of
the book was John Gray, though "Dorian Gray" was written before Oscar
had met or heard of John Gray. One cannot help admitting that this was
partly Oscar's own fault. In talk he often alluded laughingly to John Gray as
his hero, "Dorian." It is just an instance of the challenging contempt which
he began to use about this time in answer to the inventions of hatred.
Late in this year, 1891, he published four stories completely void of
offence, calling the collection "A House of Pomegranates." He dedicated
each of the tales to a lady of distinction and the book made many friends;
but it was handled contemptuously in the press and had no sale.
By this time people expected a certain sort of book from Oscar Wilde and
wanted nothing else. They hadn't to wait long. Early in 1892 we heard that
Oscar had written a drama in French called Salome, and at once it was put
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about that Sarah Bernhardt was going to produce it in London. Then came
dramatic surprise on surprise: while it was being rehearsed, the Lord
Chamberlain refused to license it on the ground that it introduced Biblical
characters. Oscar protested in a brilliant interview against the action of the
Censor as "odious and ridiculous." He pointed out that all the greatestartists--painters and sculptors, musicians and writers--had taken many of
their best subjects from the Bible, and wanted to know why the dramatist
should be prevented from treating the great soul-tragedies most proper to
his art. When informed that the interdict was to stand, he declared in a pet
that he would settle in France and take out letters of naturalisation:
"I am not English. I am Irish--which is quite another thing." Of course the
press made all the fun it could of his show of temper.
Mr. Robert Ross considers "Salome" "the most powerful and perfect of all
Oscar's dramas." I find it almost impossible to explain, much less justify, its
astonishing popularity. When it appeared, the press, both in France and in
England, was critical and contemptuous; but by this time Oscar had so
captured the public that he could afford to disdain critics and calumny. The
play was praised by his admirers as if it had been a masterpiece, and
London discussed it the more because it was in French and not
clapper-clawed by the vulgar.
The indescribable cold lewdness and cruelty of "Salome" quickened the
prejudice and strengthened the dislike of the ordinary English reader for its
author. And when the drama was translated into English and published with
the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley, it was disparaged and condemned by all
the leaders of literary opinion. The colossal popularity of the play, whichMr. Robert Ross proves so triumphantly, came from Germany and Russia
and is to be attributed in part to the contempt educated Germans and
Russians feel for the hypocritical vagaries of English prudery. The
illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley, too, it must be admitted, were an
additional offence to the ordinary English reader, for they intensified the
peculiar atmosphere of the drama.
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Oscar used to say that he invented Aubrey Beardsley; but the truth is, it was
Mr. Robert Ross who first introduced Aubrey to Oscar and persuaded him
to commission the "Salome" drawings which gave the English edition its
singular value. Strange to say, Oscar always hated the illustrations and
would not have the book in his house. His dislike even extended to theartist, and as Aubrey Beardsley was of easy and agreeable intercourse, the
mutual repulsion deserves a word of explanation.
Aubrey Beardsley's genius had taken London by storm. At seventeen or
eighteen this auburn-haired, blue-eyed, fragile looking youth had reached
maturity with his astounding talent, a talent which would have given him
position and wealth in any other country. In perfection of line his drawings
were superior to anything we possess. But the curious thing about the boywas that he expressed the passions of pride and lust and cruelty more
intensely even than Rops, more spontaneously than anyone who ever held
pencil. Beardsley's precocity was simply marvellous. He seemed to have an
intuitive understanding not only of his own art but of every art and craft,
and it was some time before one realised that he attained this miraculous
virtuosity by an absolute disdain for every other form of human endeavour.
He knew nothing of the great general or millionaire or man of science, and
he cared as little for them as for fishermen or 'bus-drivers. The current of
his talent ran narrow between stone banks, so to speak; it was the bold
assertion of it that interested Oscar.
One phase of Beardsley's extraordinary development may be recorded here.
When I first met him his letters, and even his talk sometimes, were
curiously youthful and immature, lacking altogether the personal note of his
drawings. As soon as this was noticed he took the bull by the horns andpretended that his style in writing was out of date; he wished us to believe
that he hesitated to shock us with his "archaic sympathies." Of course we
laughed and challenged him to reveal himself. Shortly afterwards I got an
article from him written with curious felicity of phrase, in modish polite
eighteenth-century English. He had reached personal expression in a new
medium in a month or so, and apparently without effort. It was Beardsley's
writing that first won Oscar to recognition of his talent, and for a while he
seemed vaguely interested in what he called his "orchid-like personality."
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They were both at lunch one day when Oscar declared that he could drink
nothing but absinthe when Beardsley was present.
"Absinthe," he said, "is to all other drinks what Aubrey's drawings are to
other pictures: it stands alone: it is like nothing else: it shimmers likesouthern twilight in opalescent colouring: it has about it the seduction of
strange sins. It is stronger than any other spirit, and brings out the
sub-conscious self in man. It is just like your drawings, Aubrey; it gets on
one's nerves and is cruel.
"Baudelaire called his poems Fleurs du Mal, I shall call your drawings
_Fleurs du Péché_--flowers of sin.
"When I have before me one of your drawings I want to drink absinthe,
which changes colour like jade in sunlight and takes the senses thrall, and
then I can live myself back in imperial Rome, in the Rome of the later
Cæsars."
"Don't forget the simple pleasures of that life, Oscar," said Aubrey; "Nero
set Christians on fire, like large tallow candles; the only light Christians
have ever been known to give," he added in a languid, gentle voice.
This talk gave me the key. In personal intercourse Oscar Wilde was more
English than the English: he seldom expressed his opinion of person or
prejudice boldly; he preferred to hint dislike and disapproval. His insistence
on the naked expression of lust and cruelty in Beardsley's drawings showed
me that direct frankness displeased him; for he could hardly object to the
qualities which were making his own "Salome" world-famous.
The complete history of the relations between Oscar Wilde and Beardsley,
and their mutual dislike, merely proves how difficult it is for original artists
to appreciate one another: like mountain peaks they stand alone. Oscar
showed a touch of patronage, the superiority of the senior, in his
intercourse with Beardsley, and often praised him ineptly, whereas
Beardsley to the last spoke of Oscar as a showman, and hoped drily that he
knew more about literature than he did about art. For a moment, they
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worked in concert, and it is important to remember that it was Beardsley
who influenced Oscar, and not Oscar who influenced Beardsley.
Beardsley's contempt of critics and the public, his artistic boldness and
self-assertion, had a certain hardening influence on Oscar: as things turned
out a most unfortunate influence.
In spite of Mr. Robert Ross's opinion I regard "Salome," as a student work,
an outcome of Oscar's admiration for Flaubert and his "Herodias," on the
one hand, and "Les Sept Princesses," of Maeterlinck on the other. He has
borrowed the colour and Oriental cruelty with the banquet-scene from the
Frenchman, and from the Fleming the simplicity of language and the
haunting effect produced by the repetition of significant phrases. Yet
"Salome" is original through the mingling of lust and hatred in the heroine,and by making this extraordinary virgin the chief and centre of the drama
Oscar has heightened the interest of the story and bettered Flaubert's
design. I feel sure he copied Maeterlinck's simplicity of style because it
served to disguise his imperfect knowledge of French and yet this very
artlessness adds to the weird effect of the drama.
The lust that inspires the tragedy was characteristic, but the cruelty was
foreign to Oscar; both qualities would have injured him in England, had it
not been for two things. First of all only a few of the best class of English
people know French at all well, and for the most part they disdain the
sex-morality of their race; while the vast mass of the English public regard
French as in itself an immoral medium and is inclined to treat anything in
that tongue with contemptuous indifference. One can only say that
"Salome" confirmed Oscar's growing reputation for abnormal viciousness.
It was in 1892 that some of Oscar's friends struck me for the first time as
questionable, to say the best of them. I remember giving a little dinner to
some men in rooms I had in Jermyn Street. I invited Oscar, and he brought
a young friend with him. After dinner I noticed that the youth was angry
with Oscar and would scarcely speak to him, and that Oscar was making up
to him. I heard snatches of pleading from Oscar--"I beg of you.... It is not
true.... You have no cause".... All the while Oscar was standing apart from
the rest of us with an arm on the young man's shoulder; but his coaxing was
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in vain, the youth turned away with petulant, sullen ill-temper. This is a
mere snap-shot which remained in my memory, and made me ask myself
afterwards how I could have been so slow of understanding.
Looking back and taking everything into consideration--his social success,the glare of publicity in which he lived, the buzz of talk and discussion that
arose about everything he did and said, the increasing interest and value of
his work and, above all, the ever-growing boldness of his writing and the
challenge of his conduct--it is not surprising that the black cloud of hate
and slander which attended him persistently became more and more
threatening.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross."
CHAPTER IX
No season, it is said, is so beautiful as the brief northern summer.Three-fourths of the year is cold and dark, and the ice-bound landscape is
swept by snowstorm and blizzard. Summer comes like a goddess; in a
twinkling the snow vanishes and Nature puts on her robes of tenderest
green; the birds arrive in flocks; flowers spring to life on all sides, and the
sun shines by night as by day. Such a summertide, so beautiful and so brief,
was accorded to Oscar Wilde before the final desolation.
I want to give a picture of him at the topmost height of happy hours, whichwill afford some proof of his magical talent of speech besides my own
appreciation of it, and, fortunately, the incident has been given to me. Mr.
Ernest Beckett, now Lord Grimthorpe, a lover of all superiorities, who has
known the ablest men of the time, takes pleasure in telling a story which
shows Oscar Wilde's influence over men who were anything but literary in
their tastes. Mr. Beckett had a party of Yorkshire squires, chiefly
fox-hunters and lovers of an outdoor life, at Kirkstall Grange when he
heard that Oscar Wilde was in the neighbouring town of Leeds.
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Immediately he asked him to lunch at the Grange, chuckling to himself
beforehand at the sensational novelty of the experiment. Next day "Mr.
Oscar Wilde" was announced and as he came into the room the sportsmen
forthwith began hiding themselves behind newspapers or moving together
in groups in order to avoid seeing or being introduced to the notoriouswriter. Oscar shook hands with his host as if he had noticed nothing, and
began to talk.
"In five minutes," Grimthorpe declares, "all the papers were put down and
everyone had gathered round him to listen and laugh."
At the end of the meal one Yorkshireman after the other begged the host to
follow the lunch with a dinner and invite them to meet the wonder again.When the party broke up in the small hours they all went away delighted
with Oscar, vowing that no man ever talked more brilliantly. Grimthorpe
cannot remember a single word Oscar said: "It was all delightful," he
declares, "a play of genial humour over every topic that came up, like
sunshine dancing on waves."
The extraordinary thing about Oscar's talent was that he did not monopolise
the conversation: he took the ball of talk wherever it happened to be at the
moment and played with it so humorously that everyone was soon smiling
delightedly. The famous talkers of the past, Coleridge, Macaulay, Carlyle
and the others, were all lecturers: talk to them was a discourse on a
favourite theme, and in ordinary life they were generally regarded as bores.
But at his best Oscar Wilde never dropped the tone of good society: he
could afford to give place to others; he was equipped at all points: no
subject came amiss to him: he saw everything from a humorous angle, anddazzled one now with word-wit, now with the very stuff of merriment.
Though he was the life and soul of every social gathering, and in constant
demand, he still read omnivorously, and his mind naturally occupied itself
with high themes.
For some years, the story of Jesus fascinated him and tinged all his thought.
We were talking about Renan's "Life" one day: a wonderful book he called
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it, one of the three great biographies of the world, Plato's dialogues with
Socrates as hero and Boswell's "Life of Johnson" being the other two. It
was strange, he thought, that the greatest man had written the worst
biography; Plato made of Socrates a mere phonograph, into which he talked
his own theories: Renan did better work, and Boswell, the humble lovingfriend, the least talented of the three, did better still, though being English,
he had to keep to the surface of things and leave the depths to be divined.
Oscar evidently expected Plato and Renan to have surpassed comparison.
It seemed to me, however, that the illiterate Galilean fishermen had proved
themselves still more consummate painters than Boswell, though they, too,
left a great deal too much to the imagination. Love is the best of artists; the
puddle of rain in the road can reflect a piece of sky marvellously.
The Gospel story had a personal interest for Oscar; he was always weaving
little fables about himself as the Master.
In spite of my ignorance of Hebrew the story of Jesus had always had the
strongest attraction for me, and so we often talked about Him, though from
opposite poles.
Renan I felt had missed Jesus at his highest. He was far below the sincerity,
the tenderness and sweet-thoughted wisdom of that divine spirit.
Frenchman-like, he stumbled over the miracles and came to grief. Claus
Sluter's head of Jesus in the museum of Dijon is a finer portrait, and so is
the imaginative picture of Fra Angelico. It seemed to me possible to do a
sketch from the Gospels themselves which should show the growth of the
soul of Jesus and so impose itself as a true portrait.
Oscar's interest in the theme was different; he put himself frankly in the
place of his model, and appeared to enjoy the jarring antinomy which
resulted. One or two of his stories were surprising in ironical suggestion;
surprising too because they showed his convinced paganism. Here is one
which reveals his exact position:
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"When Joseph of Arimathea came down in the evening from Mount
Calvary where Jesus had died he saw on a white stone a young man seated
weeping. And Joseph went near him and said, 'I understand how great thy
grief must be, for certainly that Man was a just Man.' But the young man
made answer, 'Oh, it is not for that I am weeping. I am weeping because Itoo have wrought miracles. I also have given sight to the blind, I have
healed the palsied and I have raised the dead; I too have caused the barren
fig tree to wither away and I have turned water into wine ... and yet they
have not crucified me.'"
At the time this apologue amused me; in the light of later events it assumed
a tragic significance. Oscar Wilde ought to have known that in this world
every real superiority is pursued with hatred, and every worker of miraclesis sure to be persecuted. But he had no inkling that the Gospel story is
symbolic--the life-story of genius for all time, eternally true. He never
looked outside himself, and as the fruits of success were now sweet in his
mouth, a pursuing Fate seemed to him the most mythical of myths. His
child-like self-confidence was pathetic. The laws that govern human affairs
had little interest for the man who was always a law unto himself. Yet by
some extraordinary prescience, some inexplicable presentiment, the
approaching catastrophe cast its shadow over his mind and he felt vaguely
that the life-journey of genius would be incomplete and farcical without the
final tragedy: whoever lives for the highest must be crucified.
It seems memorable to me that in this brief summer of his life, Oscar Wilde
should have concerned himself especially with the life-story of the Man of
Sorrows who had sounded all the depths of suffering. Just when he himself
was about to enter the Dark Valley, Jesus was often in his thoughts and healways spoke of Him with admiration. But after all how could he help it?
Even Dekker saw as far as that:
"The best of men That e'er wore earth about Him."
This was the deeper strain in Oscar Wilde's nature though he was always
disinclined to show it. Habitually he lived in humorous talk, in the epithets
and epigrams he struck out in the desire to please and astonish his hearers.
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delightful, unexpected humour set off the commonplace incident; but it was
only the convention that Arthur Walter would see. The play was poor, he
thought, which brought me to wonder.
After the first act I went downstairs to the foyer and found the critics inmuch the same mind. There was an enormous gentleman called Joseph
Knight, who cried out:
"The humour is mechanical, unreal." Seeing that I did not respond he
challenged me:
"What do you think of it?"
"That is for you critics to answer," I replied.
"I might say," he laughed, "in Oscar's own peculiar way, 'Little promise and
less performance.' Ha! ha! ha!"
"That's the exact opposite to Oscar's way," I retorted. "It is the listeners
who laugh at his humour."
"Come now, really," cried Knight, "you cannot think much of the play?"
For the first time in my life I began to realise that nine critics out of ten are
incapable of judging original work. They seem to live in a sort of fog,
waiting for someone to give them the lead, and accordingly they love to
discuss every new play right and left.
"I have not seen the whole play," I answered. "I was not at any of the
rehearsals; but so far it is surely the best comedy in English, the most
brilliant: isn't it?"
The big man started back and stared at me; then burst out laughing.
"That's good," he cried with a loud unmirthful guffaw. "'Lady
Windermere's Fan' better than any comedy of Shakespeare! Ha! ha! ha!
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'more brilliant!' ho! ho!"
"Yes," I persisted, angered by his disdain, "wittier, and more humorous
than 'As You Like It,' or 'Much Ado.' Strange to say, too, it is on a higher
intellectual level. I can only compare it to the best of Congreve, and I think it's better." With a grunt of disapproval or rage the great man of the daily
press turned away to exchange bleatings with one of his _confrères_.
The audience was a picked audience of the best heads in London, far
superior in brains therefore to the average journalist, and their judgment
was that it was a most brilliant and interesting play. Though the humour
was often prepared, the construction showed a rare mastery of stage-effect.
Oscar Wilde had at length come into his kingdom.
At the end the author was called for, and Oscar appeared before the curtain.
The house rose at him and cheered and cheered again. He was smiling, with
a cigarette between his fingers, wholly master of himself and his audience.
"I am so glad, ladies and gentlemen, that you like my play.[10] I feel sure
you estimate the merits of it almost as highly as I do myself."
The house rocked with laughter. The play and its humour were a seven
days' wonder in London. People talked of nothing but "Lady Windermere's
Fan." The witty words in it ran from lip to lip like a tidbit of scandal. Some
clever Jewesses and, strange to say, one Scotchman were the loudest in
applause. Mr. Archer, the well-known critic of The World , was the first and
only journalist to perceive that the play was a classic by virtue of "genuine
dramatic qualities." Mrs. Leverson turned the humorous sayings intocurrent social coin in Punch, of all places in the world, and from a favourite
Oscar Wilde rapidly became the idol of smart London.
The play was an intellectual triumph. This time Oscar had not only won
success but had won also the suffrages of the best. Nearly all the
journalist-critics were against him and made themselves ridiculous by their
brainless strictures; Truth and The Times, for example, were poisonously
puritanic, but thinking people came over to his side in a body. The halo of
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fame was about him, and the incense of it in his nostrils made him more
charming, more irresponsibly gay, more genial-witty than ever. He was as
one set upon a pinnacle with the sunshine playing about him, lighting up
his radiant eyes. All the while, however, the foul mists from the underworld
were wreathing about him, climbing higher and higher.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross."
CHAPTER X
Thou hast led me like an heathen sacrifice, With music and with fatal pomp
of flowers, To my eternal ruin.--Webster's The White Devil.
"Lady Windermere's Fan" was a success in every sense of the word, and
during its run London was at Oscar's feet. There were always a few doors
closed to him; but he could afford now to treat his critics with laughter, call
them fogies and old-fashioned and explain that they had not a decaloguebut a millelogue of sins forbidden and persons tabooed because it was
easier to condemn than to understand.
I remember a lunch once when he talked most brilliantly and finished up by
telling the story now published in his works as "A Florentine Tragedy." He
told it superbly, making it appear far more effective than in its written form.
A well-known actor, piqued at being compelled to play listener, made
himself ridiculous by half turning his back on the narrator. But after lunchWillie Grenfell (now Lord Desborough), a model English athlete gifted
with peculiar intellectual fairness, came round to me:
"Oscar Wilde is most surprising, most charming, a wonderful talker."
At the same moment Mr. K. H---- came over to us. He was a man who went
everywhere and knew everyone. He had quiet, ingratiating manners, always
spoke in a gentle smiling way and had a good word to say for everyone,
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especially for women; he was a bachelor, too, and wholly unattached. He
surprised me by taking up Grenfell's praise and breaking into a lyric:
"The best talker who ever lived," he said; "most extraordinary. I am so
infinitely obliged to you for asking me to meet him--a new delight. Hebrings a supernal air into life. I am in truth indebted to you"--all this in an
affected purring tone. I noticed for the first time that there was a touch of
rouge on his face; Grenfell turned away from us rather abruptly I thought.
At this first roseate dawn of complete success and universal applause, new
qualities came to view in Oscar. Praise gave him the fillip needed in order
to make him surpass himself. His talk took on a sort of autumnal richness
of colour, and assumed a new width of range; he now used pathos as wellas humour and generally brought in a story or apologue to lend variety to
the entertainment. His little weaknesses, too, began to show themselves and
they grew rankly in the sunshine. He always wanted to do himself well, as
the phrase goes, but now he began to eat and drink more freely than before.
His vanity became defiant. I noticed one day that he had signed himself,
Oscar O'Flahertie Wilde, I think under some verses which he had
contributed years before to his College magazine. I asked him jokingly
what the O'Flahertie stood for. To my astonishment he answered me
gravely:
"The O'Flaherties were kings in Ireland, and I have a right to the name; I
am descended from them."
I could not help it; I burst out laughing.
"What are you laughing at, Frank?" he asked with a touch of annoyance.
"It seems humorous to me," I explained, "that Oscar Wilde should want to
be an O'Flahertie," and as I spoke a picture of the greatest of the
O'Flaherties, with bushy head and dirty rags, warming enormous hairy legs
before a smoking peat-fire, flashed before me. I think something of the sort
must have occurred to Oscar, too, for, in spite of his attempt to be grave, he
could not help laughing.
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"It's unkind of you, Frank," he said. "The Irish were civilised and Christians
when the English kept themselves warm with tattooings."
He could not help telling one in familiar talk of Clumber or some other
great house where he had been visiting; he was intoxicated with his ownpopularity, a little surprised, perhaps, to find that he had won fame so easily
and on the primrose path, but one could forgive him everything, for he
talked more delightfully than ever.
It is almost inexplicable, but nevertheless true that life tries all of us, tests
every weak point to breaking, and sets off and exaggerates our powers.
Burns saw this when he wrote:
"Wha does the utmost that he can Will whyles do mair."
And the obverse is true: whoever yields to a weakness habitually, some day
goes further than he ever intended, and comes to worse grief than he
deserved. The old prayer: Lead us not into temptation, is perhaps a
half-conscious recognition of this fact. But we moderns are inclined to walk
heedlessly, no longer believing in pitfalls or in the danger of gratified
desires. And Oscar Wilde was not only an unbeliever; but he had all the
heedless confidence of the artist who has won world-wide popularity and
has the halo of fame on his brow. With high heart and smiling eyes he went
to his fate unsuspecting.
It was in the autumn of 1891 that he first met Lord Alfred Douglas. He was
thirty-six and Lord Alfred Douglas a handsome, slim youth of twenty-one,
with large blue eyes and golden-fair hair. His mother, the Dowager LadyQueensberry, preserves a photograph of him taken a few years before,
when he was still at Winchester, a boy of sixteen with an expression which
might well be called angelic.
When I met him, he was still girlishly pretty, with the beauty of youth,
coloring and fair skin; though his features were merely ordinary. It was
Lionel Johnson, the writer, a friend and intimate of Douglas at Winchester,
who brought him to tea at Oscar's house in Tite Street. Their mutual
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attraction had countless hooks. Oscar was drawn by the lad's personal
beauty, and enormously affected besides by Lord Alfred Douglas' name and
position: he was a snob as only an English artist can be a snob; he loved
titular distinctions, and Douglas is one of the few great names in British
history with the gilding of romance about it. No doubt Oscar talked betterthan his best because he was talking to Lord Alfred Douglas. To the last the
mere name rolled on his tongue gave him extraordinary pleasure. Besides,
the boy admired him, hung upon his lips with his soul in his eyes; showed,
too, rare intelligence in his appreciation, confessed that he himself wrote
verses and loved letters passionately. Could more be desired than perfection
perfected?
And Alfred Douglas on his side was almost as powerfully attracted; he hadinherited from his mother all her literary tastes--and more: he was already a
master-poet with a singing faculty worthy to be compared with the greatest.
What wonder if he took this magical talker, with the luminous eyes and
charming voice, and a range and play of thought beyond his imagining, for
a world's miracle, one of the Immortals. Before he had listened long, I have
been told, the youth declared his admiration passionately. They were an
extraordinary pair and were complementary in a hundred ways, not only in
mind, but in character. Oscar had reached originality of thought and
possessed the culture of scholarship, while Alfred Douglas had youth and
rank and beauty, besides being as articulate as a woman with an
unsurpassable gift of expression. Curiously enough, Oscar was as yielding
and amiable in character as the boy was self-willed, reckless, obstinate and
imperious.
Years later Oscar told me that from the first he dreaded Alfred Douglas'aristocratic, insolent boldness:
"He frightened me, Frank, as much as he attracted me, and I held away
from him. But he wouldn't have it; he sought me out again and again and I
couldn't resist him. That is my only fault. That's what ruined me. He
increased my expenses so that I could not meet them; over and over again I
tried to free myself from him; but he came back and I yielded--alas!"
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Though this is Oscar's later gloss on what actually happened, it is fairly
accurate. He was never able to realise how his meeting with Lord Alfred
Douglas had changed the world to him and him to the world. The effect on
the harder fibre of the boy was chiefly mental: to Alfred Douglas, Oscar
was merely a quickening, inspiring, intellectual influence; but the boy'seffect on Oscar was of character and induced imitation. Lord Alfred
Douglas' boldness gave Oscar outrecuidance, an insolent arrogance:
artist-like he tried to outdo his model in aristocratic disdain. Without
knowing the cause the change in Oscar astonished me again and again, and
in the course of this narrative I shall have to notice many instances of it.
One other effect the friendship had of far-reaching influence. Oscar always
enjoyed good living; but for years he had had to earn his bread: he knew thevalue of money; he didn't like to throw it away; he was accustomed to
lunch or dine at a cheap Italian restaurant for a few shillings. But to Lord
Alfred Douglas money was only a counter and the most luxurious living a
necessity. As soon as Oscar Wilde began to entertain him, he was led to the
dearest hotels and restaurants; his expenses became formidable and soon
outran his large earnings. For the first time since I had known him he
borrowed heedlessly right and left, and had, therefore, to bring forth play
after play with scant time for thought.
Lord Alfred Douglas has declared recently:
"I spent much more in entertaining Oscar Wilde than he did in entertaining
me"; but this is preposterous self-deception. An earlier confession of his
was much nearer the truth: "It was a sweet humiliation to me to let Oscar
Wilde pay for everything and to ask him for money."
There can be no doubt that Lord Alfred Douglas' habitual extravagance
kept Oscar Wilde hard up, and drove him to write without intermission.
There were other and worse results of the intimacy which need not be
exposed here in so many words, though they must be indicated; for they
derived of necessity from that increased self-assurance which has already
been recorded. As Oscar devoted himself to Lord Alfred Douglas and went
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about with him continually, he came to know his friends and his familiars,
and went less into society so-called. Again and again Lord Alfred Douglas
flaunted acquaintance with youths of the lowest class; but no one knew him
or paid much attention to him; Oscar Wilde, on the other hand, was already
a famous personage whose every movement provoked comment. From thistime on the rumours about Oscar took definite form and shaped themselves
in specific accusations: his enemies began triumphantly to predict his ruin
and disgrace.
Everything is known in London society; like water on sand the truth
spreads wider and wider as it gradually filters lower. The "smart set" in
London has almost as keen a love of scandal as a cathedral town. About
this time one heard of a dinner which Oscar Wilde had given at a restaurantin Soho, which was said to have degenerated into a sort of Roman orgy. I
was told of a man who tried to get money by blackmailing him in his own
house. I shrugged my shoulders at all these scandals, and asked the
talebearers what had been said about Shakespeare to make him rave as he
raved again and again against "back-wounding calumny"; and when they
persisted in their malicious stories I could do nothing but show disbelief.
Though I saw but little of Oscar during the first year or so of his intimacy
with Lord Alfred Douglas, one scene from this time filled me with
suspicion and an undefined dread.
I was in a corner of the Café Royal one night downstairs, playing chess,
and, while waiting for my opponent to move, I went out just to stretch my
legs. When I returned I found Oscar throned in the very corner, between
two youths. Even to my short-sighted eyes they appeared quite common: in
fact they looked like grooms. In spite of their vulgar appearance, however,one was nice looking in a fresh boyish way; the other seemed merely
depraved. Oscar greeted me as usual, though he seemed slightly
embarrassed. I resumed my seat, which was almost opposite him, and
pretended to be absorbed in the game. To my astonishment he was talking
as well as if he had had a picked audience; talking, if you please, about the
Olympic games, telling how the youths wrestled and were scraped with
strigulæ and threw the discus and ran races and won the myrtle-wreath. His
impassioned eloquence brought the sun-bathed palæstra before one with a
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magic of representment. Suddenly the younger of the boys asked:
"Did you sy they was niked?"
"Of course," Oscar replied, "nude, clothed only in sunshine and beauty."
"Oh, my," giggled the lad in his unspeakable Cockney way. I could not
stand it.
"I am in an impossible position," I said to my opponent, who was the
amateur chess player, Montagu Gattie. "Come along and let us have some
dinner." With a nod to Oscar I left the place. On the way out Gattie said to
me:
"So that's the famous Oscar Wilde."
"Yes," I replied, "that's Oscar, but I never saw him in such company
before."
"Didn't you?" remarked Gattie quietly; "he was well known at Oxford. I
was at the 'Varsity with him. His reputation was always rather--'high,' shall
we call it?"
I wanted to forget the scene and blot it out of my memory, and remember
my friend as I knew him at his best. But that Cockney boy would not be
banned; he leered there with rosy cheeks, hair plastered down in a love-lock
on his forehead, and low cunning eyes. I felt uncomfortable. I would not
think of it. I recalled the fact that in all our talks I had never heard Oscaruse a gross word. His mind, I said to myself, is like Spenser's, vowed away
from coarseness and vulgarity: he's the most perfect intellectual companion
in the world. He may have wanted to talk to the boys just to see what effect
his talk would have on them. His vanity is greedy enough to desire even
such applause as theirs.... Of course, that was the explanation--vanity. My
affection for him, tormented by doubt, had found at length a satisfactory
solution. It was the artist in him, I said to myself, that wanted a model.
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But why not boys of his own class? The answer suggested itself; boys of
his own class could teach him nothing; his own boyhood would supply him
with all the necessary information about well-bred youth. But if he wanted
a gutter-snipe in one of his plays, he would have to find a gutter-lad and
paint him from life. That was probably the truth, I concluded. So satisfiedwas I with my discovery that I developed it to Gattie; but he would not hear
of it.
"Gattie has nothing of the artist in him," I decided, "and therefore cannot
understand." And I went on arguing, if Gattie were right, why two boys? It
seemed evident to me that my reading of the riddle was the only plausible
one. Besides it left my affection unaffected and free. Still, the giggle, the
plastered oily hair and the venal leering eyes came back to me again andagain in spite of myself.
CHAPTER XI
There is a secret apprehension in man counselling sobriety and moderation,
a fear born of expediency distinct from conscience, which is ethical; thoughit seems to be closely connected with conscience acting, as it does, by
warnings and prohibitions. The story of Polycrates and his ring is a symbol
of the instinctive feeling that extraordinary good fortune is perilous and can
not endure.
A year or so after the first meeting between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred
Douglas I heard that they were being pestered on account of some amorous
letters which had been stolen from them. There was talk of blackmail andhints of an interesting exposure.
Towards the end of the year it was announced that Lord Alfred Douglas
had gone to Egypt; but this "flight into Egypt," as it was wittily called, was
gilded by the fact that a little later he was appointed an honorary attaché to
Lord Cromer. I regarded his absence as a piece of good fortune, for when
he was in London, Oscar had no time to himself, and was seen in public
with associates he would have done better to avoid. Time and again he had
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praised Lord Alfred Douglas to me as a charming person, a poet, and had
grown lyrical about his violet eyes and honey-coloured hair. I knew nothing
of Lord Alfred Douglas, and had no inkling of his poetic talent. I did not
like several of Oscar's particular friends, and I had a special dislike for the
father of Lord Alfred Douglas. I knew Queensberry rather well. I was amember of the old Pelican Club, and I used to go there frequently for a talk
with Tom, Dick or Harry, about athletics, or for a game of chess with
George Edwards. Queensberry was there almost every night, and someone
introduced me to him. I was eager to know him because he had surprised
me. At some play,[11] I think it was "The Promise of May," by Tennyson,
produced at the Globe, in which atheists were condemned, he had got up in
his box and denounced the play, proclaiming himself an atheist. I wanted to
know the Englishman who could be so contemptuous of convention. Hadhe acted out of aristocratic insolence, or was he by any possibility
high-minded? To one who knew the man the mere question must seem
ridiculous.
Queensberry was perhaps five feet nine or ten in height, with a plain,
heavy, rather sullen face, and quick, hot eyes. He was a mass of
self-conceit, all bristling with suspicion, and in regard to money, prudent to
meanness. He cared nothing for books, but liked outdoor sports and under a
rather abrupt, but not discourteous, manner hid an irritable, violent temper.
He was combative and courageous as very nervous people sometimes are,
when they happen to be strong-willed--the sort of man who, just because he
was afraid of a bull and had pictured the dreadful wound it could give,
would therefore seize it by the horns.
The insane temper of the man got him into rows at the Pelican more thanonce. I remember one evening he insulted a man whom I liked immensely.
Haseltine was a stockbroker, I think, a big, fair, handsome fellow who took
Queensberry's insults for some time with cheerful contempt. Again and
again he turned Queensberry's wrath aside with a fair word, but
Queensberry went on working himself into a passion, and at last made a
rush at him. Haseltine watched him coming and hit out in the nick of time;
he caught Queensberry full in the face and literally knocked him heels over
head. Queensberry got up in a sad mess: he had a swollen nose and black
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eye and his shirt was all stained with blood spread about by hasty wiping.
Any other man would have continued the fight or else have left the club on
the spot; Queensberry took a seat at a table, and there sat for hours silent. I
could only explain it to myself by saying that his impulse to fly at once
from the scene of his disgrace was very acute, and therefore he resisted it,made up his mind not to budge, and so he sat there the butt of the derisive
glances and whispered talk of everyone who came into the club in the next
two or three hours. He was just the sort of person a wise man would avoid
and a clever one would use--a dangerous, sharp, ill-handled tool.
Disliking his father, I did not care to meet Lord Alfred Douglas, Oscar's
newest friend.
I saw Oscar less frequently after the success of his first play; he no longer
needed my editorial services, and was, besides, busily engaged; but I have
one good trait to record of him. Some time before I had lent him £50; so
long as he was hard up I said nothing about it; but after the success of his
second play, I wrote to him saying that the £50 would be useful to me if he
could spare it. He sent me a cheque at once with a charming letter.
He was now continually about again with Lord Alfred Douglas who, it
appeared, had had a disagreement with Lord Cromer and returned to
London. Almost immediately scandalous stories came into circulation
concerning them: "Have you heard the latest about Lord Alfred and Oscar?
I'm told they're being watched by the police," and so forth and so on
interminably. One day a story came to me with such wealth of weird detail
that it was manifestly at least founded on fact. Oscar was said to have
written extraordinary letters to Lord Alfred Douglas: a youth called AlfredWood had stolen the letters from Lord Alfred Douglas' rooms in Oxford
and had tried to blackmail Oscar with them. The facts were so peculiar and
so precise that I asked Oscar about it. He met the accusation at once and
very fairly, I thought, and told me the whole story. It puts the triumphant
power and address of the man in a strong light, and so I will tell it as he told
it to me.
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"When I was rehearsing 'A Woman of No Importance' at the Haymarket,"
he began, "Beerbohm Tree showed me a letter I had written a year or so
before to Alfred Douglas. He seemed to think it dangerous, but I laughed at
him and read the letter with him, and of course he came to understand it
properly. A little later a man called Wood told me he had found someletters which I had written to Lord Alfred Douglas in a suit of clothes
which Lord Alfred had given to him. He gave me back some of the letters
and I gave him a little money. But the letter, a copy of which had been sent
to Beerbohm Tree, was not amongst them.
"Some time afterwards a man named Allen called upon me one night in
Tite Street, and said he had got a letter of mine which I ought to have.
"The man's manner told me that he was the real enemy. 'I suppose you
mean that beautiful letter of mine to Lord Alfred Douglas,' I said. 'If you
had not been so foolish as to send a copy of it to Mr. Beerbohm Tree, I
should have been glad to have paid you a large sum for it, as I think it is
one of the best I ever wrote.' Allen looked at me with sulky, cunning eyes
and said:
"'A curious construction could be put upon that letter.'
"'No doubt, no doubt,' I replied lightly; 'art is not intelligible to the criminal
classes.' He looked me in the face defiantly and said:
"'A man has offered me £60 for it.'
"'You should take the offer,' I said gravely; '£60 is a great price. I myself have never received such a large sum for any prose work of that length. But
I am glad to find that there is someone in England who will pay such a
large sum for a letter of mine. I don't know why you come to me,' I added,
rising, 'you should sell the letter at once.'
"Of course, Frank, as I spoke my body seemed empty with fear. The letter
could be misunderstood, and I have so many envious enemies; but I felt
that there was nothing else for it but bluff. As I went to the door Allen rose
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too, and said that the man who had offered him the money was out of town.
I turned to him and said:
"'He will no doubt return, and I don't care for the letter at all.'
"At this Allen changed his manner, said he was very poor, he hadn't a
penny in the world, and had spent a lot trying to find me and tell me about
the letter. I told him I did not mind relieving his distress, and gave him half
a sovereign, assuring him at the same time that the letter would shortly be
published as a sonnet in a delightful magazine. I went to the door with him,
and he walked away. I closed the door; but didn't shut it at once, for
suddenly I heard a policeman's step coming softly towards my house--pad,
pad! A dreadful moment, then he passed by. I went into the room again allshaken, wondering whether I had done right, whether Allen would hawk
the letter about--a thousand vague apprehensions.
"Suddenly a knock at the street door. My heart was in my mouth, still I
went and opened it: a man named Cliburn was there.
"'I have come to you with a letter of Allen's.'
"'I cannot be bothered any more,' I cried, 'about that letter; I don't care
twopence about it. Let him do what he likes with it.'
"To my astonishment Cliburn said:
"'Allen has asked me to give it back to you,' and he produced it.
"'Why does he give it back to me?' I asked carelessly.
"'He says you were kind to him and that it is no use trying to "rent" you;
you only laugh at us.'
"I looked at the letter; it was very dirty, and I said:
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"'I think it is unpardonable that better care should not have been taken of a
manuscript of mine.'
"He said he was sorry; but it had been in many hands. I took the letter up
casually:
"'Well, I will accept the letter back. You can thank Mr. Allen for me.'
"I gave Cliburn half a sovereign for his trouble, and said to him:
"'I am afraid you are leading a desperately wicked life.'
"'There's good and bad in every one of us,' he replied. I said somethingabout his being a philosopher, and he went away. That's the whole story,
Frank."
"But the letter?" I questioned.
"The letter is nothing," Oscar replied; "a prose poem. I will give you a copy
of it."
Here is the letter:
"MY OWN BOY,--Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it is a marvel that those
red rose-leaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music
and song than for the madness of kissing. Your slim-gilt soul walks
between passion and poetry. No Hyacinthus followed Love so madly as
you in Greek days. Why are you alone in London, and when do you go toSalisbury? Do go there and cool your hands in the grey twilight of Gothic
things. Come here whenever you like. It is a lovely place and only lacks
you. Do go to Salisbury first. Always with undying love,
Yours,
OSCAR."
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* * * * *
This letter startled me; "slim-gilt" and the "madness of kissing" were
calculated to give one pause; but after all, I thought, it may be merely an
artist's letter, half pose, half passionate admiration. Another thought struck me.
"But how did such a letter," I cried, "ever get into the hands of a
blackmailer?"
"I don't know," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "Lord Alfred Douglas
is very careless and inconceivably bold. You should know him, Frank; he's
a delightful poet."
"But how did he come to know a creature like Wood?" I persisted.
"How can I tell, Frank," he answered a little shortly; and I let the matter
drop, though it left in me a certain doubt, an uncomfortable suspicion.
The scandal grew from hour to hour, and the tide of hatred rose in surges.
One day I was lunching at the Savoy, and while talking to the head waiter,
Cesari, who afterwards managed the Elysée Palace Hotel in Paris, I thought
I saw Oscar and Douglas go out together. Being a little short-sighted, I
asked:
"Isn't that Mr. Oscar Wilde?"
"Yes," said Cesari, "and Lord Alfred Douglas. We wish they would not
come here; it does us a lot of harm."
"How do you mean?" I asked sharply.
"Some people don't like them," the quick Italian answered immediately.
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"Oscar Wilde," I remarked casually, "is a great friend of mine," but the
super-subtle Italian was already warned.
"A clever writer, I believe," he said, smiling in bland acquiescence.
This incident gave me warning, strengthened again in me the exact
apprehension and suspicion which the Douglas letter had bred. Oscar I
knew was too self-centred, went about too continually with admirers to
have any understanding of popular feeling. He would be the last man to
realize how fiercely hate, malice and envy were raging against him. I
wanted to warn him; but hardly knew how to do it effectively and without
offence: I made up my mind to keep my eyes open and watch an
opportunity.
A little later I gave a dinner at the Savoy and asked him to come. He was
delightful, his vivacious gaiety as exhilarating as wine. But he was more
like a Roman Emperor than ever: he had grown fat: he ate and drank too
much; not that he was intoxicated, but he became flushed, and in spite of
his gay and genial talk he affected me a little unpleasantly; he was gross
and puffed up. But he gave one or two splendid snapshots of actors and
their egregious vanity. It seemed to him a great pity that actors should be
taught to read and write: they should learn their pieces from the lips of the
poet.
"Just as work is the curse of the drinking classes of this country," he said
laughing, "so education is the curse of the acting classes."
Yet even when making fun of the mummers there was a new tone in him of arrogance and disdain. He used always to be genial and kindly even to
those he laughed at; now he was openly contemptuous. The truth is that his
extraordinarily receptive mind went with an even more abnormal
receptivity of character: unlike most men of marked ability, he took colour
from his associates. In this as in love of courtesies and dislike of coarse
words he was curiously feminine. Intercourse with Beardsley, for example,
had backed his humorous gentleness with a sort of challenging courage; his
new intimacy with Lord Alfred Douglas, coming on the top of his triumph
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as a playwright, was lending him aggressive self-confidence. There was in
him that [Greek: hubris] (insolent self-assurance) which the Greek feared,
the pride which goeth before destruction. I regretted the change in him and
was nervously apprehensive.
After dinner we all went out by the door which gives on the Embankment,
for it was after 12.30. One of the party proposed that we should walk for a
minute or two--at least as far as the Strand, before driving home. Oscar
objected. He hated walking; it was a form of penal servitude to the animal
in man, he declared; but he consented, nevertheless, under protest,
laughing. When we were going up the steps to the Strand he again objected,
and quoted Dante's famous lines:
"Tu proverai si come sa di sale Lo pane altrui; e com' è duro calle Lo
scendere e 'l salir per l'altrui scale."
The impression made by Oscar that evening was not only of
self-indulgence but of over-confidence. I could not imagine what had given
him this insolent self-complacence. I wanted to get by myself and think.
Prosperity was certainly doing him no good.
All the while the opposition to him, I felt, was growing in force. How could
I verify this impression, I asked myself, so as to warn him effectually?
I decided to give a lunch to him, and on purpose I put on the invitations:
"To meet Mr. Oscar Wilde and hear a new story." Out of a dozen
invitations sent out to men, seven or eight were refused, three or four telling
me in all kindness that they would rather not meet Oscar Wilde. Thisconfirmed my worst fears: when Englishmen speak out in this way the
dislike must be near revolt.
I gave the lunch and saw plainly enough that my forebodings were justified.
Oscar was more self-confident, more contemptuous of criticism, more gross
of body than ever, but his talk did not suffer; indeed, it seemed to improve.
At this lunch he told the charming fable of "Narcissus," which is certainly
one of his most characteristic short stories.
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"When Narcissus died the Flowers of the Field were plunged in grief, and
asked the River for drops of water that they might mourn for him.
"'Oh,' replied the River, 'if only my drops of water were tears, I should not
have enough to weep for Narcissus myself--I loved him.'
"'How could you help loving Narcissus?' said the flowers, 'so beautiful was
he.'
"'Was he beautiful?' asked the River.
"'Who should know that better than you?' said the flowers, 'for every day,
lying on your bank, he would mirror his beauty in your waters.'"
Oscar paused here, and then went on:
"'If I loved him,' replied the River, 'it is because, when he hung over me, I
saw the reflection of my own loveliness in his eyes.'"
After lunch I took him aside and tried to warn him, told him that unpleasant
stories were being put about against him; but he paid no heed to me.
"All envy, Frank, and malice. What do I care? I go to Clumber this
summer; besides I am doing another play which I rather like. I always knew
that play-writing was my province. As a youth I tried to write plays in
verse; that was my mistake. Now I know better; I'm sure of myself and of
success."
Somehow or other in spite of his apparent assurance I felt he was in danger
and I doubted his quality as a fighter. But after all it was not my business:
wilful man must have his way.
It seems to me now that my mistrust dated from the second paper war with
Whistler, wherein to the astonishment of everyone Oscar did not come off
victorious. As soon as he met with opposition his power of repartee seemed
to desert him and Whistler, using mere rudeness and man-of-the-world
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sharpness, held the field. Oscar was evidently not a born fighter.
I asked him once how it was he let Whistler off so lightly. He shrugged his
shoulders and showed some irritation.
"What could I say, Frank? Why should I belabour the beaten? The man is a
wasp and delights in using his sting. I have done more perhaps than anyone
to make him famous. I had no wish to hurt him."
Was it magnanimity or weakness or, as I think, a constitutional, a feminine
shrinking from struggle and strife. Whatever the cause, it was clear that
Oscar was what Shakespeare called himself, "an unhurtful opposite."
It is quite possible that if he had been attacked face to face, Oscar would
have given a better account of himself. At Mrs. Grenfell's (now Lady
Desborough) he crossed swords once with the Prime Minister and came off
victorious. Mr. Asquith began by bantering him, in appearance lightly, in
reality, seriously, for putting many of his sentences in italics.
"The man who uses italics," said the politician, "is like the man who raises
his voice in conversation and talks loudly in order to make himself heard."
It was the well-known objection which Emerson had taken to Carlyle's
overwrought style, pointed probably by dislike of the way Oscar
monopolised conversation.
Oscar met the stereotyped attack with smiling good-humour.
"How delightful of you, Mr. Asquith, to have noticed that! The brilliant
phrase, like good wine, needs no bush. But just as the orator marks his good
things by a dramatic pause, or by raising or lowering his voice, or by
gesture, so the writer marks his epigrams with italics, setting the little gem,
so to speak, like a jeweller--an excusable love of one's art, not all mere
vanity, I like to think"--all this with the most pleasant smile and manner.
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In measure as I distrusted Oscar's fighting power and admired his sweetness
of nature I took sides with him and wanted to help him. One day I heard
some talk at the Pelican Club which filled me with fear for him and
quickened my resolve to put him on his guard. I was going in just as
Queensberry was coming out with two or three of his special cronies.
"I'll do it," I heard him cry, "I'll teach the fellow to leave my son alone. I'll
not have their names coupled together."
I caught a glimpse of the thrust-out combative face and the hot grey eyes.
"What's it all about?" I asked.
"Only Queensberry," said someone, "swearing he'll stop Oscar Wilde going
about with that son of his, Alfred Douglas."
Suddenly my fears took form: as in a flash I saw Oscar, heedless and
smiling, walking along with his head in the air, and that violent combative
insane creature pouncing on him. I sat down at once and wrote begging
Oscar to lunch with me the next day alone, as I had something important to
say to him. He turned up in Park Lane, manifestly anxious, a little
frightened, I think.
"What is it, Frank?"
I told him very seriously what I had heard and gave besides my impression
of Queensberry's character, and his insane pugnacity.
"What can I do, Frank?" said Oscar, showing distress and apprehension.
"It's all Bosie."
"Who is Bosie?" I asked.
"That is Lord Alfred Douglas' pet name. It's all Bosie's fault. He has
quarrelled with his father, or rather his father has quarrelled with him. He
quarrels with everyone; with Lady Queensberry, with Percy Douglas, with
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Bosie, everyone. He's impossible. What can I do?"
"Avoid him," I said. "Don't go about with Lord Alfred Douglas. Give
Queensberry his triumph. You could make a friend of him as easily as
possible, if you wished. Write him a conciliatory letter."
"But he'll want me to drop Bosie, and stop seeing Lady Queensberry, and I
like them all; they are charming to me. Why should I cringe to this
madman?"
"Because he is a madman."
"Oh, Frank, I can't," he cried. "Bosie wouldn't let me."
"'Wouldn't let you'? I repeated angrily. "How absurd! That Queensberry
man will go to violence, to any extremity. Don't you fight other people's
quarrels: you may have enough of your own some day."
"You're not sympathetic, Frank," he chided weakly. "I know you mean it
kindly, but it's impossible for me to do as you advise. I cannot give up my
friend. I really cannot let Lord Queensberry choose my friends for me. It's
too absurd."
"But it's wise," I replied. "There's a very bad verse in one of Hugo's plays.
It always amused me--he likens poverty to a low door and declares that
when we have to pass through it the man who stoops lowest is the wisest.
So when you meet a madman, the wisest thing to do is to avoid him and not
quarrel with him."
"It's very hard, Frank; of course I'll think over what you say. But really
Queensberry ought to be in a madhouse. He's too absurd," and in that spirit
he left me, outwardly self-confident. He might have remembered Chaucer's
words:
Beware also to spurne again a nall; Strive not as doeth a crocke with a wall;
Deme thy selfe that demest others dede, And trouth thee shall deliver, it is
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no drede.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] "The Promise of May" was produced in November, 1882.
CHAPTER XII
These two years 1893-4 saw Oscar Wilde at the very zenith of success.
Thackeray, who always felt himself a monetary failure in comparison with
Dickens, calls success "one of the greatest of a great man's qualities," and
Oscar was not successful merely, he was triumphant. Not Sheridan the dayafter his marriage, not Byron when he awoke to find himself famous, ever
reached such a pinnacle. His plays were bringing in so much that he could
spend money like water; he had won every sort of popularity; the gross
applause of the many, and the finer incense of the few who constitute the
jury of Fame; his personal popularity too was extraordinary; thousands
admired him, many liked him; he seemed to have everything that heart
could desire and perfect health to boot. Even his home life was without acloud. Two stories which he told at this time paint him. One was about his
two boys, Vyvyan and Cyril.
"Children are sometimes interesting," he began. "The other night I was
reading when my wife came and asked me to go upstairs and reprove the
elder boy: Cyril, it appeared, would not say his prayers. He had quarrelled
with Vyvyan, and beaten him, and when he was shaken and told he must
say his prayers, he would not kneel down, or ask God to make him a goodboy. Of course I had to go upstairs and see to it. I took the chubby little
fellow on my knee, and told him in a grave way that he had been very
naughty; naughty to hit his younger brother, and naughty because he had
given his mother pain. He must kneel down at once, and ask God to forgive
him and make him a good boy.
"'I was not naughty,' he pouted, 'it was Vyvyan; he was naughty.'
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"I explained to him that his temper was naughty, and that he must do as he
was told. With a little sigh he slipped off my knee, and knelt down and put
his little hands together, as he had been taught, and began 'Our Father.'
When he had finished the 'Lord's Prayer,' he looked up at me and said
gravely, 'Now I'll pray to myself.'
"He closed his eyes and his lips moved. When he had finished I took him in
my arms again and kissed him. 'That's right,' I said.
"'You said you were sorry,' questioned his mother, leaning over him, 'and
asked God to make you a good boy?'
"'Yes, mother,' he nodded, 'I said I was sorry and asked God to makeVyvyan a good boy.'
"I had to leave the room, Frank, or he would have seen me smiling. Wasn't
it delightful of him! We are all willing to ask God to make others good."
This story shows the lovable side of him. There was another side not so
amiable. In April, 1893, "A Woman of No Importance" was produced by
Herbert Beerbohm Tree at The Haymarket and ran till the end of the
season, August 16th, surviving even the festival of St. Grouse. The
astonishing success of this second play confirmed Oscar Wilde's popularity,
gave him money to spend and increased his self-confidence. In the summer
he took a house up the river at Goring, and went there to live with Lord
Alfred Douglas. Weird stories came to us in London about their life
together. Some time in September, I think it was, I asked him what was the
truth underlying these reports.
"Scandals and slanders, Frank, have no relation to truth," he replied.
"I wonder if that's true," I said, "slander often has some substratum of truth;
it resembles the truth like a gigantic shadow; there is a likeness at least in
outline."
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"That would be true," he retorted, "if the canvas, so to speak, on which the
shadows fall were even and true; but it is not. Scandals and slander are
related to the hatred of the people who invent them and are not in any
shadowy sense even, effigies or images of the person attacked."
"Much smoke, then," I queried, "and no fire?"
"Only little fires," he rejoined, "show much smoke. The foundation for
what you heard is both small and harmless. The summer was very warm
and beautiful, as you know, and I was up at Goring with Bosie. Often in the
middle of the day we were too hot to go on the river. One afternoon it was
sultry-close, and Bosie proposed that I should turn the hose pipe on him. He
went in and threw his things off and so did I. A few minutes later I wasseated in a chair with a bath towel round me and Bosie was lying on the
grass about ten yards away, when the vicar came to pay us a call. The
servant told him that we were in the garden, and he came and found us
there. Frank, you have no idea the sort of face he pulled. What could I
say?"
"'I am the vicar of the parish,' he bowed pompously.
"'I'm delighted to see you,' I said, getting up and draping myself carefully,
'you have come just in time to enjoy a perfectly Greek scene. I regret that I
am scarcely fit to receive you, and Bosie there'--and I pointed to Bosie
lying on the grass. The vicar turned his head and saw Bosie's white limbs;
the sight was too much for him; he got very red, gave a gasp and fled from
the place.
"I simply sat down in my chair and shrieked with laughter. How he may
have described the scene, what explanation he gave of it, what vile gloss he
may have invented, I don't know and I don't care. I have no doubt he
wagged his head and pursed his lips and looked unutterable things. But
really it takes a saint to suffer such fools gladly."
I could not help smiling when I thought of the vicar's face, but Oscar's tone
was not pleasant.
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The change in him had gone further than I had feared. He was now utterly
contemptuous of criticism and would listen to no counsel. He was gross,
too, the rich food and wine seemed to ooze out of him and his manner was
defiant, hard. He was like some great pagan determined to live his own life
to the very fullest, careless of what others might say or think or do. Eventhe stories which he wrote about this time show the worst side of his
paganism:
"When Jesus was minded to return to Nazareth, Nazareth was so changed
that He no longer recognised His own city. The Nazareth where he had
lived was full of lamentations and tears; this city was filled with outbursts
of laughter and song....
"Christ went out of the house and, behold, in the street he saw a woman
whose face and raiment were painted and whose feet were shod with pearls,
and behind her walked a man who wore a cloak of two colours, and whose
eyes were bright with lust. And Christ went up to the man and laid His
hand on his shoulder, and said to him, 'Tell me, why art thou following this
woman, and why dost thou look at her in such wise?' The man turned
round, recognised Him and said, 'I was blind; Thou didst heal me; what else
should I do with my sight?'"
The same note is played on in two or three more incidents, but the one I
have given is the best, and should have been allowed to stand alone. It has
been called blasphemous; it is not intentionally blasphemous; as I have
said, Oscar always put himself quite naïvely in the place of any historical
character.
The disdain of public opinion which Oscar now showed not only in his
writings, but in his answers to criticism, quickly turned the public dislike
into aggressive hatred. In 1894 a book appeared, "The Green Carnation,"
which was a sort of photograph of Oscar as a talker and a caricature of his
thought. The gossipy story had a surprising success, altogether beyond its
merits, which simply testified to the intense interest the suspicion of
extraordinary viciousness has for common minds. Oscar's genius was not
given in the book at all, but his humour was indicated and a malevolent
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doubt of his morality insisted upon again and again. Rumour had it that the
book was true in every particular, that Mr. Hichens had taken down Oscar's
talks evening after evening and simply reproduced them. I asked Oscar if
this was true.
"True enough, Frank," he replied with a certain contempt which was
foreign to him. "Hichens got to know Bosie Douglas in Egypt. They went
up the Nile together, I believe with 'Dodo' Benson. Naturally Bosie talked a
great deal about me and Hichens wanted to know me. When they returned
to town, I thought him rather pleasant, and saw a good deal of him. I had no
idea that he was going to play reporter; it seems to me a breach of
confidence--ignoble."
"It is not a picture of you," I said, "but there is a certain likeness."
"A photograph is always like and unlike, Frank," he replied; "the sun too,
when used mechanically, is merely a reporter, and traduces instead of
reproducing you."
"The Green Carnation" ruined Oscar Wilde's character with the general
public. On all sides the book was referred to as confirming the worst
suspicions: the cloud which hung over him grew continually darker.
During the summer of 1894 he wrote the "Ideal Husband," which was the
outcome of a story I had told him. I had heard it from an American I had
met in Cairo, a Mr. Cope Whitehouse. He told me that Disraeli had made
money by entrusting the Rothschilds with the purchase of the Suez Canal
shares. It seemed to me strange that this statement, if true, had never beenset forth authoritatively; but the story was peculiarly modern, and had
possibilities in it. Oscar admitted afterwards that he had taken the idea and
used it in "An Ideal Husband."
It was in this summer also that he wrote "The Importance of Being
Earnest," his finest play. He went to the seaside and completed it, he said,
in three weeks, and, when I spoke of the delight he must feel at having two
plays performed in London at the same time, he said:
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"Next year, Frank, I may have four or five; I could write one every two
months with the greatest ease. It all depends on money. If I need money I
shall write half a dozen plays next year."
His words reminded me of what Goethe had said about himself: in each of the ten years he spent on his "Theory of Light" he could have written a
couple of plays as good as his best. The land of Might-have-been is peopled
with these gorgeous shadow-shapes.
Oscar had already found his public, a public capable of appreciating the
very best he could do. As soon as "The Importance of Being Earnest" was
produced it had an extraordinary success, and success of the best sort. Even
journalist critics had begun to cease exhibiting their own limitations infoolish fault-finding, and now imitated their betters, parroting phrases of
extravagant laudation.
Oscar took the praise as he had taken the scandal and slander, with
complacent superiority. He had changed greatly and for the worse: he was
growing coarser and harder every year. All his friends noticed this. Even
M. André Gide, who was a great admirer and wrote, shortly after his death,
the best account of him that appeared, was compelled to deplore his
deterioration. He says:
"One felt that there was less tenderness in his looks, that there was
something harsh in his laughter, and a wild madness in his joy. He seemed
at the same time to be sure of pleasing, and less ambitious to succeed
therein. He had grown reckless, hardened and conceited. Strangely enough
he no longer spoke in fables...."
His brother Willie made a similar complaint to Sir Edward Sullivan. Sir
Edward writes:
"William Wilde told me, when Oscar was in prison, that the only trouble
between him and his brother was caused by Oscar's inordinate vanity in the
period before his conviction. 'He had surrounded himself,' William said,
'with a gang of parasites who praised him all day long, and to whom he
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used to give his cigarette-cases, breast pins, etc., in return for their
sickening flattery. No one, not even I, his brother, dared offer any criticism
on his works without offending him.'"
If proof were needed both of his reckless contempt for public opinion andthe malignancy with which he was misjudged, it could be found in an
incident which took place towards the end of 1894. A journal entitled The
Chameleon was produced by some Oxford undergraduates. Oscar wrote for
it a handful of sayings which he called "Phrases and Philosophies for the
Use of the Young." His epigrams were harmless enough; but in the same
number there appeared a story entitled "The Priest and the Acolyte" which
could hardly be defended. The mere fact that his work was printed in the
same journal called forth a storm of condemnation though he had neverseen the story before it was published nor had he anything to do with its
insertion.
Nemesis was following hard after him. Late in this year he spoke to me of
his own accord about Lord Queensberry. He wanted my advice:
"Lord Queensberry is annoying me," he said; "I did my best to reconcile
him and Bosie. One day at the Café Royal, while Bosie and I were lunching
there, Queensberry came in and I made Bosie go over and fetch his father
and bring him to lunch with us. He was half friendly with me till quite
recently; though he wrote a shameful letter to Bosie about us. What am I to
do?"
I asked him what Lord Queensberry objected to.
"He objects to my friendship with Bosie."
"Then why not cease to see Bosie?" I asked.
"It is impossible, Frank, and ridiculous; why should I give up my friends
for Queensberry?"
"I should like to see Queensberry's letter," I said. "Is it possible?"
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"I'll bring it to you, Frank, but there's nothing in it." A day or two later he
showed me the letter, and after I had read it he produced a copy of the
telegram which Lord Alfred Douglas had sent to his father in reply. Here
they both are; they speak for themselves loudly enough:
ALFRED,--
It is extremely painful for me to have to write to you in the strain I must;
but please understand that I decline to receive any answers from you in
writing in return. After your recent hysterical impertinent ones I refuse to
be annoyed with such, and I decline to read any more letters. If you have
anything to say do come here and say it in person. Firstly, am I to
understand that, having left Oxford as you did, with discredit to yourself,the reasons of which were fully explained to me by your tutor, you now
intend to loaf and loll about and do nothing? All the time you were wasting
at Oxford I was put off with an assurance that you were eventually to go
into the Civil Service or to the Foreign Office, and then I was put off with
an assurance that you were going to the Bar. It appears to me that you
intend to do nothing. I utterly decline, however, to just supply you with
sufficient funds to enable you to loaf about. You are preparing a wretched
future for yourself, and it would be most cruel and wrong for me to
encourage you in this. Secondly, I come to the more painful part of this
letter--your intimacy with this man Wilde. It must either cease or I will
disown you and stop all money supplies. I am not going to try and analyse
this intimacy, and I make no charge; but to my mind to pose as a thing is as
bad as to be it. With my own eyes I saw you both in the most loathsome
and disgusting relationship as expressed by your manner and expression.
Never in my experience have I ever seen such a sight as that in yourhorrible features. No wonder people are talking as they are. Also I now hear
on good authority, but this may be false, that his wife is petitioning to
divorce him for sodomy and other crimes. Is this true, or do you not know
of it? If I thought the actual thing was true, and it became public property, I
should be quite justified in shooting him at sight. These Christian English
cowards and men, as they call themselves, want waking up.
Your disgusted so-called father,
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QUEENSBERRY.
In reply to this letter Lord Alfred Douglas telegraphed:
"What a funny little man you are! ALFRED DOUGLAS."
This telegram was excellently calculated to drive Queensberry frantic with
rage. There was feminine cunning in its wound to vanity.
A little later Oscar told me that Queensberry accompanied by a friend had
called on him.
"What happened?" I asked.
"I said to him, 'I suppose, Lord Queensberry, you have come to apologise
for the libellous letter you wrote about me?'
"'No,' he replied, 'the letter was privileged; it was written to my son.'
"'How dared you say such a thing about your son and me?'
"'You were both kicked out of The Savoy Hotel for disgusting conduct,' he
replied.
"'That's untrue,' I said, 'absolutely untrue.'
"'You were blackmailed too for a disgusting letter you wrote my son,' he
went on.
"'I don't know who has been telling you all these silly stories,' I replied, 'but
they are untrue and quite ridiculous.'
"He ended up by saying that if he caught me and his son together again he
would thrash me.
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"'I don't know what the Queensberry rules are,' I retorted, 'but my rule is to
shoot at sight in case of personal violence,' and with that I told him to leave
my house."
"Of course he defied you?" I questioned.
"He was rude, Frank, and preposterous to the end."
As Oscar was telling me the story, it seemed to me as if another person
were speaking through his mouth. The idea of Oscar "standing up" to
Queensberry or "shooting at sight" was too absurd. Who was inspiring him?
Alfred Douglas?
"What has happened since?" I enquired.
"Nothing," he replied, "perhaps he will be quiet now. Bosie has written him
a terrible letter; he must see now that, if he goes on, he will only injure his
own flesh and blood."
"That won't stop him," I replied, "if I read him aright. But if I could see
what Alfred Douglas wrote, I should be better able to judge of the effect it
will have on Queensberry."
A little later I saw the letter: it shows better than words of mine the tempers
of the chief actors in this squalid story:
"As you return my letters unopened, I am obliged to write on a postcard. I
write to inform you that I treat your absurd threats with absoluteindifference. Ever since your exhibition at O.W.'s house, I have made a
point of appearing with him at many public restaurants such as The
Berkeley, Willis's Rooms, the Café Royal, etc., and I shall continue to go to
any of these places whenever I choose and with whom I choose. I am of age
and my own master. You have disowned me at least a dozen times, and
have very meanly deprived me of money. You have therefore no right over
me, either legal or moral. If O.W. was to prosecute you in the Central
Criminal Court for libel, you would get seven years' penal servitude for
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your outrageous libels. Much as I detest you, I am anxious to avoid this for
the sake of the family; but if you try to assault me, I shall defend myself
with a loaded revolver, which I always carry; and if I shoot you or if he
shoots you, we shall be completely justified, as we shall be acting in
self-defence against a violent and dangerous rough, and I think if you weredead many people would not miss you.--A.D."
This letter of the son seemed to me appalling. My guess was right; it was he
who was speaking through Oscar; the threat of shooting at sight came from
him. I did not then understand all the circumstances; I had not met Lady
Queensberry. I could not have imagined how she had suffered at the hands
of her husband--a charming, cultivated woman, with exquisite taste in
literature and art; a woman of the most delicate, aspen-like sensibilities andnoble generosities, coupled with that violent, coarse animal with the hot
eyes and combative nature. Her married life had been a martyrdom.
Naturally the children had all taken her side in the quarrel, and Lord Alfred
Douglas, her especial favourite, had practically identified himself with her,
which explains to some extent, though nothing can justify, the unnatural
animosity of his letter. The letter showed me that the quarrel was far
deeper, far bitterer than I had imagined--one of those dreadful family
quarrels, where the intimate knowledge each has of the other whips anger
to madness. All I could do was to warn Oscar.
"It's the old, old story," I said. "You are putting your hand between the bark
and the tree, and you will suffer for it." But he would not or could not see
it.
"What is one to do with such a madman?" he asked pitiably.
"Avoid him," I replied, "as you would avoid a madman, who wanted to
fight with you; or conciliate him; there is nothing else to do."
He would not be warned. A little later the matter came up again. At the first
production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" Lord Queensberry
appeared at the theatre carrying a large bouquet of turnips and carrots.
What the meaning was of those vegetables only the man himself and his
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like could divine. I asked Oscar about the matter. He seemed annoyed but
on the whole triumphant.
"Queensberry," he said, "had engaged a stall at the St. James's Theatre, no
doubt to kick up a row; but as soon as I heard of it I got Alick (GeorgeAlexander) to send him back his money. On the night of the first
performance Queensberry appeared carrying a large bundle of carrots. He
was refused admittance at the box-office, and when he tried to enter the
gallery the police would not let him in. He must be mad, Frank, don't you
think? I am glad he was foiled."
"He is insanely violent," I said, "he will keep on attacking you."
"But what can I do, Frank?"
"Don't ask for advice you won't take," I replied. "There's a French proverb
I've always liked: 'In love and war don't seek counsel.' But for God's sake,
don't drift. Stop while you can."
But Oscar would have had to take a resolution and act in order to stop, and
he was incapable of such energy. The wild horses of Fate had run away
with the light chariot of his fortune, and what the end would be no one
could foresee. It came with appalling suddenness.
One evening, in February, '95, I heard that the Marquis of Queensberry had
left an insulting card for Oscar at the Albemarle Club. My informant added
gleefully that now Oscar would have to face the music and we'd all see
what was in him. There was no malice in this, just an Englishman's pleasurein a desperate fight, and curiosity as to the issue.
A little later I received a letter from Oscar, asking me if he could call on me
that afternoon. I stayed in, and about four o'clock he came to see me.
At first he used the old imperious mask, which he had lately accustomed
himself to wear.
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"I am bringing an action against Queensberry, Frank," he began gravely,
"for criminal libel. He is a mere wild beast. My solicitors tell me that I am
certain to win. But they say some of the things I have written will be
brought up against me in court. Now you know all I have written. Would
you in your position as editor of The Fortnightly come and give evidencefor me, testify for instance that 'Dorian Gray' is not immoral?"
"Yes," I replied at once, "I should be perfectly willing, and I could say
more than that; I could say that you are one of the very few men I have ever
known whose talk and whose writings were vowed away from grossness of
any sort."
"Oh! Frank, would you? It would be so kind of you," he cried out. "Mysolicitors said I ought to ask you, but they were afraid you would not like to
come: your evidence will win the case. It is good of you." His whole face
was shaken; he turned away to hide the tears.
"Anything I can do, Oscar," I said, "I shall do with pleasure, and, as you
know, to the uttermost; but I want you to consider the matter carefully. An
English court of law gives me no assurance of a fair trial or rather I am
certain that in matters of art or morality an English court is about the worst
tribunal in the civilised world."
He shook his head impatiently.
"I cannot help it, I cannot alter it," he said.
"You must listen to me," I insisted. "You remember the Whistler andRuskin action. You know that Whistler ought to have won. You know that
Ruskin was shamelessly in fault; but the British jury and the so-called
British artists treated Whistler and his superb work with contempt. Take a
different case altogether, the Belt case, where all the Academicians went
into the witness box, and asserted honestly enough that Belt was an
impostor, yet the jury gave him a verdict of £5,000, though a year later he
was sent to penal servitude for the very frauds which the jury in the first
trial had declared by their verdict he had not committed. An English law
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court is all very well for two average men, who are fighting an ordinary
business dispute. That's what it's made for, but to judge a Whistler or the
ability or the immorality of an artist is to ask the court to do what it is
wholly unfit to do. There is not a judge on the bench whose opinion on
such a matter is worth a moment's consideration, and the jury are athousand years behind the judge."
"That may be true, Frank; but I cannot help it."
"Don't forget," I persisted, "all British prejudices will be against you. Here
is a father, the fools will say, trying to protect his young son. If he has made
a mistake, it is only through excess of laudable zeal; you would have to
prove yourself a religious maniac in order to have any chance against himin England."
"How terrible you are, Frank. You know it is Bosie Douglas who wants me
to fight, and my solicitors tell me I shall win."
"Solicitors live on quarrels. Of course they want a case that will bring
hundreds if not thousands of pounds into their pockets. Besides they like
the fight. They will have all the kudos of it and the fun, and you will pay
the piper. For God's sake don't be led into it: that way madness lies."
"But, Frank," he objected weakly, "how can I sit down under such an insult.
I must do something."
"That's another story," I replied. "Let us by all means weigh what is to be
done. But let us begin by putting the law-courts out of the question. Don'tforget that you are challenged to mortal combat. Let us consider how the
challenge should be met, but we won't fight under Queensberry rules
because Queensberry happens to be the aggressor. Don't forget that if you
lose and Queensberry goes free, everyone will hold that you have been
guilty of nameless vice. Put the law courts out of your head. Whatever else
you do, you must not bring an action for criminal libel against
Queensberry. You are sure to lose it; you haven't a dog's chance, and the
English despise the beaten--_væ victis_! Don't commit suicide."
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Nothing was determined when the time came to part.
This conversation took place, I believe, on the Friday or Saturday. I spent
the whole of Sunday trying to find out what was known about Oscar Wilde
and what would be brought up against him. I wanted to know too how hewas regarded in an ordinary middle-class English home.
My investigations had appalling results. Everyone assumed that Oscar
Wilde was guilty of the worst that had ever been alleged against him; the
very people who received him in their houses condemned him pitilessly
and, as I approached the fountain-head of information, the charges became
more and more definite; to my horror, in the Public Prosecutor's office, his
guilt was said to be known and classified.
All "people of importance" agreed that he would lose his case against
Queensberry; "no English jury would give Oscar Wilde a verdict against
anyone," was the expert opinion.
"How unjust!" I cried.
A careless shrug was the only reply.
I returned home from my enquiries late on Sunday afternoon, and in a few
minutes Oscar called by appointment. I told him I was more convinced than
ever that he must not go on with the prosecution; he would be certain to
lose. Without beating about the bush I declared that he had no earthly
chance.
"There are letters," I said, "which are infinitely worse than your published
writings, which will be put in evidence against you."
"What letters do you mean, Frank?" he questioned. "The Wood letters to
Lord Alfred Douglas I told you about? I can explain all of them."
"You paid blackmail to Wood for letters you had written to Douglas," I
replied, "and you will not be able to explain that fact to the satisfaction of a
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jury. I am told it is possible that witnesses will be called against you. Take
it from me, Oscar, you have not a ghost of a chance."
"Tell me what you mean, Frank, for God's sake," he cried.
"I can tell you in a word," I replied; "you will lose your case. I have
promised not to say more."
I tried to persuade him by his vanity.
"You must remember," I said, "that you are a sort of standard bearer for
future generations. If you lose you will make it harder for all writers in
England; though God knows it is hard enough already; you will put back the hands of the clock for fifty years."
I seemed almost to have persuaded him. He questioned me:
"What is the alternative, Frank, the wisest thing to do in your opinion? Tell
me that."
"You ought to go abroad," I replied, "go abroad with your wife, and let
Queensberry and his son fight out their own miserable quarrels; they are
well-matched."
"Oh, Frank," he cried, "how can I do that?"
"Sleep on it," I replied; "I am going to, and we can talk it all over in a day
or two."
"But I must know," he said wistfully, "to-morrow morning, Frank."
"Bernard Shaw is lunching with me to-morrow," I replied, "at the Café
Royal."
He made an impatient movement of his head.
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"He usually goes early," I went on, "and if you like to come after three
o'clock we can have a talk and consider it all."
"May I bring Bosie?" he enquired.
"I would rather you did not," I replied, "but it is for you to do just as you
like. I don't mind saying what I have to say, before anyone," and on that we
parted.
Somehow or other next day at lunch both Shaw and I got interested in our
talk, and we were both at the table when Oscar came in. I introduced them,
but they had met before. Shaw stood up and proposed to go at once, but
Oscar with his usual courtesy assured him that he would be glad if hestayed.
"Then, Oscar," I said, "perhaps you won't mind Shaw hearing what I
advise?"
"No, Frank, I don't mind," he sighed with a pitiful air of depression.
I am not certain and my notes do not tell me whether Bosie Douglas came
in with Oscar or a little later, but he heard the greater part of our talk. I put
the matter simply.
"First of all," I said, "we start with the certainty that you are going to lose
the case against Queensberry. You must give it up, drop it at once; but you
cannot drop it and stay in England. Queensberry would probably attack you
again and again. I know him well; he is half a savage and regards pity as aweakness; he has absolutely no consideration for others.
"You should go abroad, and, as ace of trumps, you should take your wife
with you. Now for the excuse: I would sit down and write such a letter as
you alone can write to The Times. You should set forth how you have been
insulted by the Marquis of Queensberry, and how you went naturally to the
Courts for a remedy, but you found out very soon that this was a mistake.
No jury would give a verdict against a father, however mistaken he might
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be. The only thing for you to do therefore is to go abroad, and leave the
whole ring, with its gloves and ropes, its sponges and pails, to Lord
Queensberry. You are a maker of beautiful things, you should say, and not
a fighter. Whereas the Marquis of Queensberry takes joy only in fighting.
You refuse to fight with a father under these circumstances."
Oscar seemed to be inclined to do as I proposed. I appealed to Shaw, and
Shaw said he thought I was right; the case would very likely go against
Oscar, a jury would hardly give a verdict against a father trying to protect
his son. Oscar seemed much moved. I think it was about this time that
Bosie Douglas came in. At Oscar's request, I repeated my argument and to
my astonishment Douglas got up at once, and cried with his little white,
venomous, distorted face:
"Such advice shows you are no friend of Oscar's."
"What do you mean?" I asked in wonderment; but he turned and left the
room on the spot. To my astonishment Oscar also got up.
"It is not friendly of you, Frank," he said weakly. "It really is not friendly."
I stared at him: he was parrotting Douglas' idiotic words.
"Don't be absurd," I said; but he repeated:
"No, Frank, it is not friendly," and went to the door and disappeared.
Like a flash I saw part at least of the truth. It was not Oscar who had evermisled Douglas, but Lord Alfred Douglas who was driving Oscar whither
he would.
I turned to Shaw.
"Did I say anything in the heat of argument that could have offended Oscar
or Douglas?"
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"Nothing," said Shaw, "not a word: you have nothing to reproach yourself
with."[12]
Left to myself I was at a loss to imagine what Lord Alfred Douglas
proposed to himself by hounding Oscar on to attack his father. I was stillmore surprised by his white, bitter face. I could not get rid of the
impression it left on me. While groping among these reflections I was
suddenly struck by a sort of likeness, a similarity of expression and of
temper between Lord Alfred Douglas and his unhappy father. I could not
get it out of my head--that little face blanched with rage and the wild,
hating eyes; the shrill voice, too, was Queensberry's.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] I am very glad that Bernard Shaw has lately put in print his memory of
this conversation. The above account was printed, though not published, in
1911, and in 1914 Shaw published his recollection of what took place at
this consultation. Readers may judge from the comparison how far my
general story is worthy of credence. In the Introduction to his playlet, "The
Dark Lady of the Sonnets," Shaw writes:
"Yet he (Harris) knows the taste and the value of humour. He was one of
the few men of letters who really appreciated Oscar Wilde, though he did
not rally fiercely to Wilde's side until the world deserted Oscar in his ruin. I
myself was present at a curious meeting between the two when Harris on
the eve of the Queensberry trial prophesied to Wilde with miraculous
precision exactly what immediately afterwards happened to him and
warned him to leave the country. It was the first time within my knowledgethat such a forecast proved true. Wilde, though under no illusion as to the
folly of the quite unselfish suit-at-law he had been persuaded to begin,
nevertheless so miscalculated the force of the social vengeance he was
unloosing on himself that he fancied it could be stayed by putting up the
editor of The Saturday Review (as Mr. Harris then was) to declare that he
considered Dorian Gray a highly moral book, which it certainly is. When
Harris foretold him the truth, Wilde denounced him as a faint-hearted
friend who was failing him in his hour of need and left the room in anger.
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Harris's idiosyncratic power of pity saved him from feeling or showing the
smallest resentment; and events presently proved to Wilde how insanely he
had been advised in taking the action, and how accurately Harris had
gauged the situation."
CHAPTER XIII
It was weakness in Oscar and not strength that allowed him to be driven to
the conflict by Lord Alfred Douglas; it was his weakness again which
prevented him from abandoning the prosecution, once it was begun. Such a
resolution would have involved a breaking away from his associates and
from his friends; a personal assertion of will of which he was incapable.Again and again he answered my urging with:
"I can't, Frank, I can't."
When I pointed out to him that the defence was growing bolder--it was
announced one morning in the newspapers that Lord Queensberry, instead
of pleading paternal privilege and minimising his accusation, wasdetermined to justify the libel and declare that it was true in every
particular--Oscar could only say weakly:
"I can't help it, Frank, I can't do anything; you only distress me by
predicting disaster."
The fibres of resolution, never strong in him, had been destroyed by years
of self-indulgence, while the influence whipping him was stronger than Iguessed. He was hurried like a sheep to the slaughter.
Although everyone who cared to think knew that Queensberry would win
the case, many persons believed that Oscar would make a brilliant
intellectual fight, and carry off the honours, if not the verdict.
The trial took place at the Central Criminal Court on April 3rd, 1895. Mr.
Justice Collins was the judge and the case was conducted at first with the
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outward seemliness and propriety which are so peculiarly English. An hour
before the opening of the case the Court was crowded, not a seat to be had
for love or money: even standing room was at a premium.
The Counsel were the best at the Bar; Sir Edward Clarke, Q.C., Mr. CharlesMathews, and Mr. Travers Humphreys for the prosecution; Mr. Carson,
Q.C., Mr. G.C. Gill and Mr. A. Gill for the defence. Mr. Besley, Q.C., and
Mr. Monckton watched the case, it was said, for the brothers, Lord Douglas
of Hawick and Lord Alfred Douglas.
While waiting for the judge, the buzz of talk in the court grew loud;
everybody agreed that the presence of Sir Edward Clarke gave Oscar an
advantage. Mr. Carson was not so well known then as he has since become;he was regarded as a sharp-witted Irishman who had still his spurs to win.
Some knew he had been at school with Oscar, and at Trinity College was as
high in the second class as Oscar was in the first. It was said he envied
Oscar his reputation for brilliance.
Suddenly the loud voice of the clerk called for silence.
As the judge appeared everyone stood up and in complete stillness Sir
Edward Clarke opened for the prosecution. The bleak face, long upper lip
and severe side whiskers made the little man look exactly like a
nonconformist parson of the old days, but his tone and manner were
modern--quiet and conversational. The charge, he said, was that the
defendant had published a false and malicious libel against Mr. Oscar
Wilde. The libel was in the form of a card which Lord Queensberry had left
at a club to which Mr. Oscar Wilde belonged: it could not be justifiedunless the statements written on the card were true. It would, however, have
been possible to have excused the card by a strong feeling, a mistaken
feeling, on the part of a father, but the plea which the defendant had
brought before the Court raised graver issues. He said that the statement
was true and was made for the public benefit. There were besides a series
of accusations in the plea (everyone held his breath), mentioning names of
persons, and it was said with regard to these persons that Mr. Wilde had
solicited them to commit a grave offence and that he had been guilty with
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each and all of them of indecent practices...." My heart seemed to stop. My
worst forebodings were more than justified. Vaguely I heard Clarke's voice,
"grave responsibility ... serious allegations ... credible witnesses ... Mr.
Oscar Wilde was the son of Sir William Wilde ..." the voice droned on and
I awoke to feverish clearness of brain. Queensberry had turned the defenceinto a prosecution. Why had he taken the risk? Who had given him the new
and precise information? I felt that there was nothing before Oscar but ruin
absolute. Could anything be done? Even now he could go abroad--even
now. I resolved once more to try and induce him to fly.
My interest turned from these passionate imaginings to the actual. Would
Sir Edward Clarke fight the case as it should be fought? He had begun to
tell of the friendship between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas; thefriendship too between Oscar Wilde and Lady Queensberry, who on her
own petition had been divorced from the Marquis; would he go on to paint
the terrible ill-feeling that existed between Lord Alfred Douglas and his
father, and show how Oscar had been dragged into the bitter family
squabble? To the legal mind this had but little to do with the case.
We got, instead, a dry relation of the facts which have already been set
forth in this history. Wright, the porter of the Albemarle Club, was called to
say that Lord Queensberry had handed him the card produced. Witness had
looked at the card; did not understand it; but put it in an envelope and gave
it to Mr. Wilde.
Mr. Oscar Wilde was then called and went into the witness box. He looked
a little grave but was composed and serious. Sir Edward Clarke took him
briefly through the incidents of his life: his successes at school and theUniversity; the attempts made to blackmail him, the insults of Lord
Queensberry, and then directed his attention to the allegations in the plea
impugning his conduct with different persons. Mr. Oscar Wilde declared
that there was no truth in any of these statements. Hereupon Sir Edward
Clarke sat down. Mr. Carson rose and the death duel began.
Mr. Carson brought out that Oscar Wilde was forty years of age and Lord
Alfred Douglas twenty-four. Down to the interview in Tite Street Lord
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Queensberry had been friendly with Mr. Wilde.
"Had Mr. Wilde written in a publication called _The Chameleon_?"
"Yes."
"Had he written there a story called 'The Priest and the Acolyte'?"
"No."
"Was that story immoral?"
Oscar amused everyone by replying:
"Much worse than immoral, it was badly written," but feeling that this gibe
was too light for the occasion he added:
"It was altogether offensive and perfect twaddle."
He admitted at once that he did not express his disapproval of it; it was
"beneath him to concern himself with the effusions of an illiterate
undergraduate."
"Did Mr. Wilde ever consider the effect in his writings of inciting to
immorality?"
Oscar declared that he aimed neither at good nor evil, but tried to make a
beautiful thing. When questioned as to the immorality in thought in thearticle in The Chameleon, he retorted "that there is no such thing as
morality or immorality in thought." A hum of understanding and approval
ran through the court; the intellect is profoundly amoral.
Again and again he scored in this way off Mr. Carson.
"No work of art ever puts forward views; views belong to the Philistines
and not to artists."...
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"What do you think of this view?"
"I don't think of any views except my own."
All this while Mr. Carson had been hitting at a man on his own level; butOscar Wilde was above him and not one of his blows had taken effect.
Every moment, too, Oscar grew more and more at his ease, and the combat
seemed to be turning completely in his favour. Mr. Carson at length took up
"Dorian Gray" and began cross-examining on passages in it.
"You talk about one man adoring another. Did you ever adore any man?"
"No," replied Oscar quietly, "I have never adored anyone but myself."
The Court roared with laughter. Oscar went on:
"There are people in the world, I regret to say, who cannot understand the
deep affection that an artist can feel for a friend with a beautiful
personality."
He was then questioned about his letter (already quoted here) to Lord
Alfred Douglas. It was a prose-poem, he said, written in answer to a sonnet.
He had not written to other people in the same strain, not even to Lord
Alfred Douglas again: he did not repeat himself in style.
Mr. Carson read another letter from Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas,
which paints their relations with extraordinary exactness. Here it is:
SAVOY HOTEL, VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON.
DEAREST OF ALL BOYS,--
Your letter was delightful, red and yellow wine to me; but I am sad and out
of sorts. Bosie, you must not make scenes with me. They kill me, they
wreck the loveliness of life. I cannot see you, so Greek and gracious,
distorted with passion. I cannot listen to your curved lips saying hideous
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things to me. I would sooner ('here a word is indecipherable,' Mr. Carson
went on, 'but I will ask the witness')[13]--than have you bitter, unjust,
hating.... I must see you soon. You are the divine thing I want, the thing of
genius and beauty; but I don't know how to do it. Shall I come to Salisbury?
My bill here is £49 for a week. I have also got a new sitting-room.... Whyare you not here, my dear, my wonderful boy? I fear I must leave--no
money, no credit, and a heart of lead.
YOUR OWN OSCAR.
Oscar said that it was an expression of his tender admiration for Lord
Alfred Douglas.
"You have said," Mr. Carson went on, "that all the statements about persons
in the plea of justification were false. Do you still hold to that assertion?"
"I do."
Mr. Carson then paused and looked at the Judge. Justice Collins shuffled
his papers together and announced that the cross-examination would be
continued on the morrow. As the Judge went out, all the tongues in the
court broke loose. Oscar was surrounded by friends congratulating him and
rejoicing.
I was not so happy and went away to think the matter out. I tried to keep up
my courage by recalling the humorous things Oscar had said during the
cross-examination. I recalled too the dull commonplaces of Mr. Carson. I
tried to persuade myself that it was all going on very well. But in the back of my mind I realised that Oscar's answers, characteristic and clever as
many of them were, had not impressed the jury, were indeed rather
calculated to alienate them. He had taken the purely artistic standpoint, had
not attempted to go higher and reach a synthesis which would conciliate the
Philistine jurymen as well as the thinking public, and the Judge.
Mr. Carson was in closer touch with the jury, being nearer their intellectual
level, and there was a terrible menace in his last words. To-morrow, I said
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to myself, he will begin to examine about persons and not books. He did
not win on the literary question, but he was right to bring it in. The
passages he had quoted, and especially Oscar's letters to Lord Alfred
Douglas, had created a strong prejudice in the minds of the jury. They
ought not to have had this effect, I thought, but they had. My contempt forCourts of law deepened: those twelve jurymen were anything but the peers
of the accused: how could they judge him?
* * * * *
The second day of the trial was very different from the first. There seemed
to be a gloom over the Court. Oscar went into the box as if it had been the
dock; he had lost all his spring. Mr. Carson settled down to thecross-examination with apparent zest. It was evident from his mere manner
that he was coming to what he regarded as the strong part of his case. He
began by examining Oscar as to his intimacy with a person named Taylor.
"Has Taylor been to your house and to your chambers?"
"Yes."
"Have you been to Taylor's rooms to afternoon tea parties?"
"Yes."
"Did Taylor's rooms strike you as peculiar?"
"They were pretty rooms."
"Have you ever seen them lit by anything else but candles even in the day
time?"
"I think so. I'm not sure."
"Have you ever met there a young man called Wood?"
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"On one occasion."
"Have you ever met Sidney Mavor there at tea?"
"It is possible."
"What was your connection with Taylor?"
"Taylor was a friend, a young man of intelligence and education: he had
been to a good English school."
"Did you know Taylor was being watched by the police?"
"No."
"Did you know that Taylor was arrested with a man named Parker in a raid
made last year on a house in Fitzroy Square?"
"I read of it in the newspaper."
"Did that cause you to drop your acquaintance with Taylor?"
"No; Taylor explained to me that he had gone there to a dance, and that the
magistrate had dismissed the case against him."
"Did you get Taylor to arrange dinners for you to meet young men?"
"No; I have dined with Taylor at a restaurant."
"How many young men has Taylor introduced to you?"
"Five in all."
"Did you give money or presents to these five?"
"I may have done."
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"Did they give you anything?"
"Nothing."
"Among the five men Taylor introduced you to, was one named Parker?"
"Yes."
"Did you get on friendly terms with him?"
"Yes."
"Did you call him 'Charlie' and allow him to call you 'Oscar'?"
"Yes."
"How old was Parker?"
"I don't keep a census of people's ages. It would be vulgar to ask people
their age."
"Where did you first meet Parker?"
"I invited Taylor to Kettner's[14] on the occasion of my birthday, and told
him to bring what friends he liked. He brought Parker and his brother."
"Did you know Parker was a gentleman's servant out of work, and his
brother a groom?"
"No; I did not."
"But you did know that Parker was not a literary character or an artist, and
that culture was not his strong point?"
"I did."
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"What was there in common between you and Charlie Parker?"
"I like people who are young, bright, happy, careless and original. I do not
like them sensible, and I do not like them old; I don't like social distinctions
of any kind, and the mere fact of youth is so wonderful to me that I wouldsooner talk to a young man for half an hour than be cross examined by an
elderly Q.C."
Everyone smiled at this retort.
"Had you chambers in St. James's Place?"
"Yes, from October, '93, to April, '94."
"Did Charlie Parker go and have tea with you there?"
"Yes."
"Did you give him money?"
"I gave him three or four pounds because he said he was hard up."
"What did he give you in return?"
"Nothing."
"Did you give Charlie Parker a silver cigarette case at Christmas?"
"I did."
"Did you visit him one night at 12:30 at Park Walk, Chelsea?"
"I did not."
"Did you write him any beautiful prose-poems?"
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"I don't think so."
"Did you know that Charlie Parker had enlisted in the Army?"
"I have heard so."
"When you heard that Taylor was arrested what did you do?"
"I was greatly distressed and wrote to tell him so."
"When did you first meet Fred Atkins?"
"In October or November, '92."
"Did he tell you that he was employed by a firm of bookmakers?"
"He may have done."
"Not a literary man or an artist, was he?"
"No."
"What age was he?"
"Nineteen or twenty."
"Did you ask him to dinner at Kettner's?"
"I think I met him at a dinner at Kettner's."
"Was Taylor at the dinner?"
"He may have been."
"Did you meet him afterwards?"
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"I did."
"Did you call him 'Fred' and let him call you 'Oscar'?"
"Yes."
"Did you go to Paris with him?"
"Yes."
"Did you give him money?"
"Yes."
"Was there ever any impropriety between you?"
"No."
"When did you first meet Ernest Scarfe?"
"In December, 1893."
"Who introduced him to you?"
"Taylor."
"Scarfe was out of work, was he not?"
"He may have been."
"Did Taylor bring Scarfe to you at St. James's Place?"
"Yes."
"Did you give Scarfe a cigarette case?"
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"Yes: it was my custom to give cigarette cases to people I liked."
"When did you first meet Mavor?"
"In '93."
"Did you give him money or a cigarette case?"
"A cigarette case."
"Did you know Walter Grainger?"... and so on till the very air in the court
seemed peopled with spectres.
On the whole Oscar bore the cross-examination very well; but he made one
appalling slip.
Mr. Carson was pressing him as to his relations with the boy Grainger, who
had been employed in Lord Alfred Douglas' rooms in Oxford.
"Did you ever kiss him?" he asked.
Oscar answered carelessly, "Oh, dear, no. He was a peculiarly plain boy.
He was, unfortunately, extremely ugly. I pitied him for it."
"Was that the reason why you did not kiss him?"
"Oh, Mr. Carson, you are pertinently insolent."
"Did you say that in support of your statement that you never kissed him?"
"No. It is a childish question."
But Carson was not to be warded off; like a terrier he sprang again and
again:
"Why, sir, did you mention that this boy was extremely ugly?"
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"For this reason. If I were asked why I did not kiss a door-mat, I should say
because I do not like to kiss door-mats."...
"Why did you mention his ugliness?"
"It is ridiculous to imagine that any such thing could have occurred under
any circumstances."
"Then why did you mention his ugliness, I ask you?"
"Because you insulted me by an insulting question."
"Was that a reason why you should say the boy was ugly?"
(Here the witness began several answers almost inarticulately and finished
none of them. His efforts to collect his ideas were not aided by Mr.
Carson's sharp staccato repetition: "Why? why? why did you add that?") At
last the witness answered:
"You sting me and insult me and at times one says things flippantly."
Then came the re-examination by Sir Edward Clarke, which brought out
very clearly the hatred of Lord Alfred Douglas for his father. Letters were
read and in one letter Queensberry declared that Oscar had plainly shown
the white feather when he called on him. One felt that this was probably
true: Queensberry's word on such a point could be accepted.
In the re-examination Sir Edward Clarke occupied himself chiefly with twoyouths, Shelley and Conway, who had been passed over casually by Mr.
Carson. In answer to his questions Oscar stated that Shelley was a youth in
the employ of Mathews and Lane, the publishers. Shelley had very good
taste in literature and a great desire for culture. Shelley had read all his
books and liked them. Shelley had dined with him and his wife at Tite
Street. Shelley was in every way a gentleman. He had never gone with
Charlie Parker to the Savoy Hotel.
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A juryman wanted to know at this point whether the witness was aware of
the nature of the article, "The Priest and the Acolyte," in The Chameleon.
"I knew nothing of it; it came as a terrible shock to me."
This answer contrasted strangely with the light tone of his reply to the same
question on the previous day.
The re-examination did not improve Oscar's position. It left all the facts
where they were, and at least a suspicion in every mind.
Sir Edward Clarke intimated that this concluded the evidence for the
prosecution, whereupon Mr. Carson rose to make the opening speech forthe defence. I was shivering with apprehension.
He began by admitting the grave responsibility resting on Lord
Queensberry, who accepted it to the fullest. Lord Queensberry was justified
in doing all he could do to cut short an acquaintance which must be
disastrous to his son. Mr. Carson wished to draw the attention of the jury to
the fact that all these men with whom Mr. Wilde went about were
discharged servants and grooms, and that they were all about the same age.
He asked the jury also to note that Taylor, who was the pivot of the whole
case, had not yet been put in the box. Why not? He pointed out to the jury
that the very same idea that was set forth in "The Priest and the Acolyte"
was contained in Oscar Wilde's letters to Lord Alfred Douglas, and the
same idea was to be found in Lord Alfred Douglas' poem, "The Two
Loves,"[15] which was published in The Chameleon. He went on to say
that when, in the story of "The Priest and the Acolyte," the boy wasdiscovered in the priest's bed,[16] the priest made the same defence as Mr.
Wilde had made, that the world does not understand the beauty of this love.
The same idea was found again in "Dorian Gray," and he read two or three
passages from the book in support of this statement. Mr. Wilde had
described his letter to Lord Alfred Douglas as a prose sonnet. He would
read it again to the court, and he read both the letters. "Mr. Wilde says they
are beautiful," he went on, "I call them an abominable piece of disgusting
immorality."
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At this the Judge again shuffled his papers together and whispered in a
quiet voice that the court would sit on the morrow, and left the room.
The honours of the day had all been with Mr. Carson. Oscar left the box in
a depressed way. One or two friends came towards him, but the majorityheld aloof, and in almost unbroken silence everyone slipped out of the
court. Strange to say in my mind there was just a ray of hope. Mr. Carson
was still laying stress on the article in The Chameleon and scattered
passages in "Dorian Gray"; on Oscar's letters to Lord Alfred Douglas and
Lord Alfred Douglas' poems in The Chameleon. He must see, I thought,
that all this was extremely weak. Sir Edward Clarke could be trusted to tear
all such arguments, founded on literary work, to shreds. There was room
for more than reasonable doubt about all such things.
Why had not Mr. Carson put some of the young men he spoke of in the
box? Would he be able to do that? He talked of Taylor as "the pivot of the
case," and gibed at the prosecution for not putting Taylor in the box. Would
he put Taylor in the box? And why, if he had such witnesses at his beck and
call, should he lay stress on the flimsy, weak evidence to be drawn from
passages in books and poems and letters? One thing was clear: if he was
able to put any of the young men in the box about whom he had examined
Oscar, Oscar was ruined. Even if he rested his defence on the letters and
poems he'd win and Oscar would be discredited, for already it was clear
that no jury would give Oscar Wilde a verdict against a father trying to
protect his son. The issue had narrowed down to terrible straits: would it be
utter ruin to Oscar or merely loss of the case and reputation? We had only
sixteen hours to wait; they seemed to me to hold the last hope.
I drove to Tite Street, hoping to see Oscar. I was convinced that Carson had
important witnesses at his command, and that the outcome of the case
would be disastrous. Why should not Oscar even now, this very evening,
cross to Calais, leaving a letter for his counsel and the court abandoning the
idiotic prosecution.
The house at Tite Street seemed deserted. For some time no one answered
my knocking and ringing, and then a man-servant simply told me that Mr.
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Wilde was not in: he did not know whether Mr. Wilde was expected back
or not; did not think he was coming back. I turned and went home. I
thought Oscar would probably say to me again:
"I can do nothing, Frank, nothing."
* * * * *
The feeling in the court next morning was good tempered, even jaunty. The
benches were filled with young barristers, all of whom had made up their
minds that the testimony would be what one of them called "nifty."
Everyone treated the case as practically over.
"But will Carson call witnesses?" I asked.
"Of course he will," they said, "but in any case Wilde does not stand a
ghost of a chance of getting a verdict against Queensberry; he was a bally
fool to bring such an action."
"The question is," said someone, "will Wilde face the music?"
My heart leapt. Perhaps he had gone, fled already to France to avoid this
dreadful, useless torture. I could see the hounds with open mouths, dripping
white fangs, and greedy eyes all closing in on the defenceless quarry.
Would the huntsman give the word? We were not left long in doubt.
Mr. Carson continued his statement for the defence. He had sufficiently
demonstrated to the jury, he thought, that, so far as Lord Queensberry wasconcerned, he was absolutely justified in bringing to a climax in the way he
had, the connection between Mr. Oscar Wilde and his son. A dramatic
pause.
A moment later the clever advocate resumed: unfortunately he had a more
painful part of the case to approach. It would be his painful duty to bring
before them one after the other the young men he had examined Mr. Wilde
about and allow them to tell their tales. In no one of these cases were these
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young men on an equality in any way with Mr. Wilde. Mr. Wilde had told
them that there was something beautiful and charming about youth which
led him to make these acquaintances. That was a travesty of the facts. Mr.
Wilde preferred to know nothing of these young men and their antecedents.
He knew nothing about Wood; he knew nothing about Parker; he knewnothing about Scarfe, nothing about Conway, and not much about Taylor.
The truth was Taylor was the procurer for Mr. Wilde and the jury would
hear from this young man Parker, who would have to tell his unfortunate
story to them, that he was poor, out of a place, had no money, and
unfortunately fell a victim to Mr. Wilde. (Sir Edward Clarke here left the
court.)
On the first evening they met, Mr. Wilde called Parker "Charlie" and Parkercalled Mr. Wilde "Oscar." It may be a very noble instinct in some people to
wish to break down social barriers, but Mr. Wilde's conduct was not
ordered by generous instincts. Luxurious dinners and champagne were not
the way to assist a poor man. Parker would tell them that, after this first
dinner, Mr. Wilde invited him to drive with him to the Savoy Hotel. Mr.
Wilde had not told them why he had that suite of rooms at the Savoy Hotel.
Parker would tell them what happened on arriving there. This was the
scandal Lord Queensberry had referred to in his letter as far back as June or
July last year. The jury would wonder not at the reports having reached
Lord Queensberry's ears, but that Oscar Wilde had been tolerated in
London society as long as he had been. Parker had since enlisted in the
Army, and bore a good character. Mr. Wilde himself had said that Parker
was respectable. Parker would reluctantly present himself to tell his story to
the jury.
All this time the court was hushed with awe and wonder; everyone was
asking what on earth had induced Wilde to begin the prosecution; what
madness had driven him and why had he listened to the insane advice to
bring the action when he must have known the sort of evidence which
could be brought against him.
After promising to produce Parker and the others Mr. Carson stopped
speaking and began looking through his papers; when he began again,
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everyone held his breath; what was coming now? He proceeded in the same
matter-of-fact and serious way to deal with the case of the youth, Conway.
Conway, it appeared, had known Mr. Wilde and his family at Worthing.
Conway was sixteen years of age.... At this moment Sir Edward Clarke
returned with Mr. Charles Mathews, and asked permission of the judge tohave a word or two with Mr. Carson. At the close of a few minutes' talk
between the counsel, Sir Edward Clarke rose and told the Judge that after
communicating with Mr. Oscar Wilde he thought it better to withdraw the
prosecution and submit to a verdict of "not guilty."
He minimised the defeat. He declared that, in respect to matters connected
with literature and the letters, he could not resist the verdict of "not guilty,"
having regard to the fact that Lord Queensberry had not used a directaccusation, but the words "posing as," etc. Besides, he wished to spare the
jury the necessity of investigating in detail matter of the most appalling
character. He wished to make an end of the case--and he sat down.
Why on earth did Sir Edward Clarke not advise Oscar in this way weeks
before? Why did he not tell him his case could not possibly be won?
I have heard since on excellent authority that before taking up the case Sir
Edward Clarke asked Oscar Wilde whether he was guilty or not, and
accepted in good faith his assurance that he was innocent. As soon as he
realised, in court, the strength of the case against Oscar he advised him to
abandon the prosecution. To his astonishment Oscar was eager to abandon
it. Sir Edward Clarke afterwards defended his unfortunate client out of
loyalty and pity, Oscar again assuring him of his innocence.
Mr. Carson rose at once and insisted, as was his right, that this verdict of
"not guilty" must be understood to mean that Lord Queensberry had
succeeded in his plea of justification.
Mr. Justice Collins thought that it was not part of the function of the Judge
and jury to insist on wading through prurient details, which had no bearing
on the matter at issue, which had already been decided by the consent of the
prosecutors to a verdict of "not guilty." Such a verdict meant of course that
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the plea of justification was proved. The jury having consulted for a few
moments, the Clerk of Arraigns asked:
"Do you find the plea of justification has been proved or not?"
Foreman: "Yes."
"You say that the defendant is 'not guilty,' and that is the verdict of you
all?"
Foreman: "Yes, and we also find that it is for the public benefit."
The last kick to the dead lion. As the verdict was read out the spectators inthe court burst into cheers.
Mr. Carson: "Of course the costs of the defence will follow?"
Mr. Justice Collins: "Yes."
Mr. C.F. Gill: "And Lord Queensberry may be discharged?"
Mr. Justice Collins: "Certainly."
The Marquis of Queensberry left the dock amid renewed cheering, which
was taken up again and again in the street.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] The words which Mr. Carson could not read were: "I would sooner be
rented than, etc." Rent is a slang term for blackmail.
[14] A famous Italian restaurant in Soho: it had several "private rooms."
[15] This early poem of Lord Alfred Douglas is reproduced in the
Appendix at the end of this book together with another poem by the same
author, which was also mentioned in the course of the trial.
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[16] Mr. Carson here made a mistake; there is no such incident in the story:
the error merely shows how prejudiced his mind was.
CHAPTER XIV
The English are very proud of their sense of justice, proud too of their
Roman law and the practice of the Courts in which they have incorporated
it. They boast of their fair play in all things as the French boast of their
lightness, and if you question it, you lose caste with them, as one
prejudiced or ignorant or both. English justice cannot be bought, they say,
and if it is dear, excessively dear even, they rather like to feel they have
paid a long price for a good article. Yet it may be that here, as in otherthings, they take outward propriety and decorum for the inward and
ineffable grace. That a judge should be incorruptible is not so important as
that he should be wise and humane.
English journalists and barristers were very much amused at the conduct of
the Dreyfus case; yet, when Dreyfus was being tried for the second time in
France, two or three instances of similar injustice in England were set forthwith circumstance in one of the London newspapers, but no one paid any
effective attention to them. If Dreyfus had been convicted in England, it is
probable that no voice would ever have been raised in his favour; it is
absolutely certain that there would never have been a second trial. A keen
sense of abstract justice is only to be found in conjunction with a rich fount
of imaginative sympathy. The English are too self-absorbed to take much
interest in their neighbours' affairs, too busy to care for abstract questions
of right or wrong.
Before the trial of Oscar Wilde I still believed that in a criminal case rough
justice would be done in England. The bias of an English judge, I said to
myself, is always in favour of the accused. It is an honourable tradition of
English procedure that even the Treasury barristers should state rather less
than they can prove against the unfortunate person who is being attacked by
all the power and authority of the State. I was soon forced to see that these
honourable and praiseworthy conventions were as withes of straw in the
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fire of English prejudice. The first thing to set me doubting was that the
judge did not try to check the cheering in Court after the verdict in favour
of Lord Queensberry. English judges always resent and resist such popular
outbursts: why not in this case? After all, no judge could think Queensberry
a hero: he was too well known for that, and yet the cheering swelled againand again, and the judge gathered up his papers without a word and went
his way as if he were deaf. A dreadful apprehension crept over me: in spite
of myself I began to realise that my belief in English justice might be
altogether mistaken. It was to me as if the solid earth had become a quaking
bog, or indeed as if a child had suddenly discovered its parent to be
shameless. The subsequent trials are among the most painful experiences of
my life. I shall try to set down all the incidents fairly.
One peculiarity had first struck me in the conduct of the case between
Oscar Wilde and Lord Queensberry that did not seem to occur to any of the
numberless journalists and writers who commented on the trial. It was
apparent from his letter to his son (which I published in a previous chapter),
and from the fact that he called at Oscar Wilde's house that Lord
Queensberry at the beginning did not believe in the truth of his accusations;
he set them forth as a violent man sets forth hearsay and suspicion,
knowing that as a father he could do this with impunity, and accordingly at
first he pleaded privilege. Some time between the beginning of the
prosecution and the trial, he obtained an immense amount of unexpected
evidence. He then justified his libel and gave the names of the persons
whom he intended to call to prove his case. Where did he get this new
knowledge?
I have spoken again and again in the course of this narrative of Oscar'senemies, asserting that the English middle-class as puritans detested his
attitude and way of life, and if some fanatic or representative of the
nonconformist conscience had hunted up evidence against Wilde and
brought him to ruin there would have been nothing extraordinary in a
vengeance which might have been regarded as a duty. Strange to say the
effective hatred of Oscar Wilde was shown by a man of the upper class who
was anything but a puritan. It was Mr. Charles Brookfield, I believe, who
constituted himself private prosecutor in this case and raked Piccadilly to
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find witnesses against Oscar Wilde. Mr. Brookfield was afterwards
appointed Censor of Plays on the strength apparently of having himself
written one of the "riskiest" plays of the period. As I do not know Mr.
Brookfield, I will not judge him. But his appointment always seemed to me,
even before I knew that he had acted against Wilde, curiously characteristicof English life and of the casual, contemptuous way Englishmen of the
governing class regard letters. In the same spirit Lord Salisbury as Prime
Minister made a journalist Poet Laureate simply because he had puffed him
for years in the columns of The Standard . Lord Salisbury probably neither
knew nor cared that Alfred Austin had never written a line that could live.
One thing Mr. Brookfield's witnesses established: every offence alleged
against Oscar Wilde dated from 1892 or later--after his first meeting with
Lord Alfred Douglas.
But at the time all such matters were lost for me in the questions: would the
authorities arrest Oscar? or would they allow him to escape? Had the police
asked for a warrant? Knowing English custom and the desire of
Englishmen to pass in silence over all unpleasant sexual matters, I thought
he would be given the hint to go abroad and allowed to escape. That is the
ordinary, the usual English procedure. Everyone knows the case of a certain
lord, notorious for similar practices, who was warned by the police that a
warrant had been issued against him: taking the hint he has lived for many
years past in leisured ease as an honoured guest in Florence. Nor is it only
aristocrats who are so favoured by English justice: everyone can remember
the case of a Canon of Westminster who was similarly warned and also
escaped. We can come down the social scale to the very bottom and find
the same practice. A certain journalist unwittingly offended a great
personage. Immediately he was warned by the police that a warrant issuedagainst him in India seventeen years before would at once be acted upon if
he did not make himself scarce. For some time he lived in peaceful
retirement in Belgium. Moreover, in all these cases the warrants had been
issued on the sworn complaints of the parties damnified or of their parents
and guardians: no one had complained of Oscar Wilde. Naturally I thought
the dislike of publicity which dictated such lenience to the lord and the
canon and the journalist would be even more operative in the case of a man
of genius like Oscar Wilde. In certain ways he had a greater position than
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even the son of a duke: the shocking details of his trial would have an
appalling, a world-wide publicity.
Besides, I said to myself, the governing class in England is steeped in
aristocratic prejudice, and particularly when threatened by democraticinnovations, all superiorities, whether of birth or wealth, or talent, are
conscious of the same _raison d'être_ and have the same self-interest. The
lord, the millionaire and the genius have all the same reason for standing up
for each other, and this reason is usually effective. Everyone knows that in
England the law is emphatically a respecter of persons. It is not there to
promote equality, much less is it the defender of the helpless, the weak and
the poor; it is a rampart for the aristocracy and the rich, a whip in the hands
of the strong. It is always used to increase the effect of natural and inheritedinequality, and it is not directed by a high feeling of justice; but perverted
by aristocratic prejudice and snobbishness; it is not higher than democratic
equality, but lower and more sordid.
The case was just a case where an aristocratic society could and should
have shown its superiority over a democratic society with its rough rule of
equality. For equality is only half-way on the road to justice. More than
once the House of Commons has recognised this fundamental truth; it
condemned Clive but added that he had rendered "great and distinguished
services to his country"; and no one thought of punishing him for his
crimes.
Our time is even more tolerant and more corrupt. For a worse crime than
extortion Cecil Rhodes was not even brought to trial, but honoured and
fêted, while his creatures, who were condemned by the House of CommonsCommittee, were rewarded by the Government.
Had not Wilde also rendered distinguished services to his country? The
wars waged against the Mashonas and Matabeles were a doubtful good; but
the plays of Oscar Wilde had already given many hours of innocent
pleasure to thousands of persons, and were evidently destined to benefit
tens of thousands in the future. Such a man is a benefactor of humanity in
the best and truest sense, and deserves peculiar consideration.
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To the society favourite the discredit of the trial with Lord Queensberry
was in itself a punishment more than sufficient. Everyone knew when
Oscar Wilde left the court that he left it a ruined and disgraced man. Was it
worth while to stir up all the foul mud again, in order to beat the beaten?
Alas! the English are pedants, as Goethe saw; they think little of literarymen, or of merely spiritual achievements. They love to abide by rules and
pay no heed to exceptions, unless indeed the exceptions are men of title or
great wealth, or "persons of importance" to the Government. The majority
of the people are too ignorant to know the value of a book and they regard
poetry as the thistle-down of speech. It does not occur to Englishmen that a
phrase may be more valuable and more enduring in its effects than a long
campaign and a dozen victories. Yet, the sentence, "Let him that is without
sin among you first cast the stone," or Shakespeare's version of the sametruth: "if we had our deserts which of us would escape whipping?" is likely
to outlast the British Empire, and prove of more value to humanity.
The man of genius in Great Britain is feared and hated in exact proportion
to his originality, and if he happens to be a writer or a musician he is
despised to boot. The prejudice against Oscar Wilde showed itself
virulently on all hands. Mr. Justice Collins did not attempt to restrain the
cheering of the court that greeted the success of Lord Queensberry. Not one
of the policemen who stood round the door tried to stop the "booing" of the
crowd who pursued Oscar Wilde with hootings and vile cries when he left
the court. He was judged already and condemned before being tried.
The police, too, acted against him with extraordinary vigour. It has been
stated by Mr. Sherard in his "Life" that the police did not attempt to execute
the warrant against Wilde, "till after the last train had left for Dover," andthat it was only Oscar's obstinacy in remaining in London that necessitated
his arrest. This idea is wholly imaginary.
It is worth while to know exactly what took place at this juncture. From
Oscar's conduct in this crisis the reader will be able to judge whether he has
been depicted faithfully or not in this book. He has been described as
amiable, weak, of a charming disposition--easily led in action, though not
in thought: now we shall see how far we were justified, for he is at one of
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those moments which try the soul. Fortunately every incident of that day is
known: Oscar himself told me generally what happened and the minutest
details of the picture were filled in for me a little later by his best friend,
Robert Ross.
In the morning Mr. Mathews, one of Oscar's counsel, came to him and said:
"If you wish it, Clarke and I will keep the case going and give you time to
get to Calais."
Oscar refused to stir. "I'll stay," was all he would say. Robert Ross urged
him to accept Mathew's offer; but he would not: why? I am sure he had no
reason, for I put the question to him more than once, and even after
reflecting, he had no explanation to give. He stayed because to stay waseasier than to make an immediate decision and act on it energetically. He
had very little will power to begin with and his mode of life had weakened
his original endowment.
After the judgment had been given in favour of Queensberry, Oscar drove
off in a brougham, accompanied by Alfred Douglas, to consult with his
solicitor, Humphreys. At the same time he gave Ross a cheque on his bank
in St. James's Street. At that moment he intended to fly.
Ross noticed that he was followed by a detective. He drew about £200 from
the bank and raced off to meet Oscar at the Cadogan Hotel, in Sloane
Street, where Lord Alfred Douglas had been staying for the past four or five
weeks. Ross reached the Cadogan Hotel about 1.45 and found Oscar there
with Reggie Turner. Both of them advised Oscar to go at once to Dover and
try to get to France; but he would only say, "the train has gone; it is toolate." He had again lapsed into inaction.
He asked Ross to go to see his wife and tell her what had occurred. Ross
did this and had a very painful scene: Mrs. Wilde wept and said, "I hope
Oscar is going away abroad."
Ross returned to the Cadogan Hotel and told Oscar what his wife had said,
but even this didn't move him to action.
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He sat as if glued to his chair, and drank hock and seltzer steadily in almost
unbroken silence. About four o'clock George Wyndham came to see his
cousin, Alfred Douglas; not finding him, he wanted to see Oscar, but Oscar,
fearing reproaches, sent Ross instead. Wyndham said it was a pity that
Bosie Douglas should be with Oscar, and Ross immediately told him thatWilde's friends for years past had been trying to separate them and that if
he, Wyndham, would keep his cousin away, he would be doing Oscar the
very greatest kindness. At this Wyndham grew more civil, though still
"frightfully agitated," and begged Ross to get Oscar to leave the country at
once to avoid scandal. Ross replied that he and Turner had been trying to
bring that about for hours. In the middle of the conversation Bosie, having
returned, burst into the room with: "I want to see my cousin," and Ross
rejoined Oscar. In a quarter of an hour Bosie followed him to say that hewas going out with Wyndham to see someone of importance.
About five o'clock a reporter of the Star newspaper came to see Oscar, a
Mr. Marlowe, who is now editor of The Daily Mail, but again Oscar
refused to see him and sent Ross. Mr. Marlowe was sympathetic and quite
understood the position; he informed Ross that a tape message had come
through to the paper saying that a warrant for Oscar Wilde had already been
issued. Ross immediately went into the other room and told Oscar, who
said nothing, but "went very grey in the face."
A moment later Oscar asked Ross to give him the money he had got at the
bank, though he had refused it several times in the course of the day. Ross
gave it to him, naturally taking it for a sign that he had at length made up
his mind to start, but immediately afterwards Oscar settled down in his
chair and said, "I shall stay and do my sentence whatever it is"--a manevidently incapable of action.
For the next hour the trio sat waiting for the blow to fall. Once or twice
Oscar asked querulously where Bosie was, but no one could tell him.
At ten past six the waiter knocked at the door and Ross answered it. There
were two detectives. The elder entered and said, "We have a warrant here,
Mr. Wilde, for your arrest on a charge of committing indecent acts." Wilde
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wanted to know whether he would be given bail; the detective replied:
"That is a question for the magistrate."
Oscar then rose and asked, "Where shall I be taken?"
"To Bow Street," was the reply.
As he picked up a copy of the Yellow Book and groped for his overcoat,
they all noticed that he was "very drunk" though still perfectly conscious of
what he was doing.
He asked Ross to go to Tite Street and get him a change of clothes andbring them to Bow Street. The two detectives took him away in a
four-wheeler, leaving Ross and Turner on the curb.
Ross hurried to Tite Street. He found that Mrs. Oscar Wilde had gone to the
house of a relative and there was only Wilde's man servant, Arthur, in the
house, who afterwards went out of his mind, and is still, it is said, in an
asylum. He had an intense affection for Oscar. Ross found that Mrs. Oscar
Wilde had locked up Oscar's bedroom and study. He burst open the
bedroom door and, with the help of Arthur, packed up a change of things.
He then hurried to Bow Street, where he found a howling mob shouting
indecencies. He was informed by an inspector that it was impossible to see
Wilde or to leave any clothes for him.
Ross returned at once to Tite Street, forced open the library door and
removed a certain number of letters and manuscripts of Wilde's; butunluckily he couldn't find the two MSS. which he knew had been returned
to Tite Street two days before, namely, "A Florentine Tragedy" and the
enlarged version of "The Portrait of Mr. W.H."
Ross then drove to his mother's and collapsed. Mrs. Ross insisted that he
should go abroad, and in order to induce him to do it gave £500 for Oscar's
defence. Ross went to the Terminus Hotel at Calais, where Bosie Douglas
joined him a little later. They both stayed there while Oscar was being tried
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before Mr. Justice Charles and one day George Wyndham crossed the
Channel to see Bosie Douglas.
There is of course some excuse to be made for the chief actor. Oscar was
physically tired and morally broken. He had pulled the fair building of reputation and success down upon his own head, and, with the "booing" of
the mob still in his ears, he could think of nothing but the lost hours when
he ought to have used his money to take him beyond the reach of his
pursuers.
His enemies, on the other hand, had acted with the utmost promptitude.
Lord Queensberry's solicitor, Mr. Charles Russell, had stated that it was not
his client's intention to take the initiative in any criminal prosecution of Mr.Oscar Wilde, but, on the very same morning when Wilde withdrew from
the prosecution, Mr. Russell sent a letter to the Hon. Hamilton Cuffe, the
Director of Public Prosecutions, with a copy of "all our witnesses'
statements, together with a copy of the shorthand notes of the trial."
The Treasury authorities were at least as eager. As soon as possible after
leaving the court Mr. C.F. Gill, Mr. Angus Lewis, and Mr. Charles Russell
waited on Sir John Bridge at Bow Street in his private room and obtained a
warrant for the arrest of Oscar Wilde, which was executed, as we have
seen, the same evening.
The police showed him less than no favour. About eight o'clock Lord
Alfred Douglas drove to Bow Street and wanted to know if Wilde could be
bailed out, but was informed that his application could not be entertained.
He offered to procure comforts for the prisoner: this offer also wasperemptorily refused by the police inspector just as Ross's offer of night
clothes had been refused. It is a common belief that in England a man is
treated as innocent until he has been proved guilty, but those who believe
this pleasant fiction, have never been in the hands of the English police. As
soon as a man is arrested on any charge he is at once treated as if he were a
dangerous criminal; he is searched, for instance, with every circumstance of
indignity. Before his conviction a man is allowed to wear his own clothes;
but a change of linen or clothes is denied him, or accorded in part and
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grudgingly, for no earthly reason except to gratify the ill-will of the gaolers.
The warrant on which Oscar Wilde was arrested charged him with an
offence alleged to have been committed under Section xi. of the Criminal
Amendment Act of 1885; in other words, he was arrested and tried for anoffence which was not punishable by law ten years before. This Act was
brought in as a result of the shameful and sentimental stories (evidently for
the most part manufactured) which Mr. Stead had published in The Pall
Mall Gazette under the title of "Modern Babylon." In order to cover and
justify their prophet some of the "unco guid" pressed forward this so-called
legislative reform, by which it was made a criminal offence to take liberties
with a girl under thirteen years of age--even with her own consent.
Intimacy with minors under sixteen was punishable if they consented oreven tempted. Mr. Labouchere, the Radical member, inflamed, it is said,
with a desire to make the law ridiculous, gravely proposed that the section
be extended, so as to apply to people of the same sex who indulged in
familiarities or indecencies. The Puritan faction had no logical objection to
the extension, and it became the law of the land. It was by virtue of this
piece of legislative wisdom, which is without a model and without a copy
in the law of any other civilised country, that Oscar Wilde was arrested and
thrown into prison.
His arrest was the signal for an orgy of Philistine rancour such as even
London had never known before. The puritan middle class, which had
always regarded Wilde with dislike as an artist and intellectual scoffer, a
mere parasite of the aristocracy, now gave free scope to their disgust and
contempt, and everyone tried to outdo his neighbour in expressions of
loathing and abhorrence. This middle class condemnation swept the lowerclass away in its train. To do them justice, the common people, too, felt a
natural loathing for the peculiar vice attributed to Wilde; most men
condemn the sins they have no mind to; but their dislike was rather
contemptuous than profound, and with customary humour they soon turned
the whole case into a bestial, obscene joke. "Oscar" took the place of their
favourite word as a term of contempt, and they shouted it at each other on
all sides; bus-drivers, cabbies and paper sellers using it in and out of season
with the keenest relish. For the moment the upper classes lay mum-chance
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and let the storm blow over. Some of them of course agreed with the
condemnation of the Puritans, and many of them felt that Oscar and his
associates had been too bold, and ought to be pulled up.
The English journals, which are nothing but middle-class shops, took theside of their patrons. Without a single exception they outdid themselves in
condemnation of the man and all his works. You might have thought to
read their bitter diatribes that they themselves lived saintly lives, and were
shocked at sensual sin. One rubbed one's eyes in amazement. The Strand
and Fleet Street, which practically belong to this class and have been
fashioned by them, are the haunt of as vile a prostitution as can be found in
Europe; the public houses which these men frequent are low drinking dens;
yet they all lashed Oscar Wilde with every variety of insult as if theythemselves had been above reproach. The whole of London seemed to have
broken loose in a rage of contempt and loathing which was whipped up and
justified each morning by the hypocritical articles of the "unco guid" in the
daily this and the weekly that. In the streets one heard everywhere the loud
jests of the vulgar, decked out with filthy anecdotes and punctuated by
obscene laughter, as from the mouth of the Pit.
In spite of the hatred of the journalists pandering to the prejudice of their
paymasters, one could hope still that the magistrate would show some
regard for fair play. The expectation, reasonable or unreasonable, was
doomed to disappointment. On Saturday morning, the 6th, Oscar Wilde,
"described as a gentleman," the papers said in derision, was brought before
Sir John Bridge. Mr. C.F. Gill, who had been employed in the Queensberry
trial, was instructed by Mr. Angus Lewis of the Treasury, and conducted
the prosecution; Alfred Taylor was placed in the dock charged withconspiracy with Oscar Wilde. The witnesses have already been described in
connection with the Queensberry case. Charles Parker, William Parker,
Alfred Wood, Sidney Mavor and Shelley all gave evidence.
After lasting all day the case was adjourned till the following Thursday.
Mr. Travers Humphreys applied for bail for Mr. Wilde, on the ground that
he knew the warrant against him was being applied for on Friday afternoon,
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but he made no attempt to leave London. Sir John Bridge refused bail.
On Thursday, the 11th, the case was continued before Sir John Bridge, and
in the end both the accused were committed for trial. Again Mr.
Humphreys applied for bail, and again the magistrate refused to accept bail.
Now to refuse bail in cases of serious crime may be defended, but in the
case of indecent conduct it is usually granted. To run away is regarded as a
confession of guilt, and what could one wish for more than the perpetual
banishment of the corrupt liver, consequently there is no reason to refuse
bail. But in this case, though bail was offered to any amount, it was refused
peremptorily in spite of the fact that every consideration should have been
shown to an accused person who had already had a good opportunity toleave the country and had refused to budge. Moreover, Oscar Wilde had
already been criticised and condemned in a hundred papers. There was
widespread prejudice against him, no risk to the public in accepting bail,
and considerable injury done to the accused in refusing it. His affairs were
certain to be thrown into confusion; he was known not to be rich and yet he
was deprived of the power to get money together and to collect evidence
just when the power which freedom confers was most needed by him.
The magistrate was as prejudiced as the public; he had no more idea of
standing for justice and fair play than Pilate; probably, indeed, he never
gave himself the trouble to think of fairness in the matter. A large salary is
paid to magistrates in London, £1,500 a year, but it is rare indeed that any
of them rises above the vulgarest prejudice. Sir John Bridge not only
refused bail but he was careful to give his reasons for refusing it: he had not
the slightest scruple about prejudicing the case even before he had heard aword of the defence. After hearing the evidence for the prosecution he said:
"The responsibility of accepting or refusing bail rests upon me. The
considerations that weigh with me are the gravity of the offences and the
strength of the evidence. I must absolutely refuse bail and send the
prisoners for trial."
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Now these reasons, which he proffered voluntarily, and especially the use
of the word "absolutely," showed not only prejudice on the part of Sir John
Bridge, but the desire to injure the unfortunate prisoner in the public mind
and so continue the evil work of the journalists.
The effect of this prejudice and rancour on the part of the whole community
had various consequences.
The mere news that Oscar Wilde had been arrested and taken to Holloway
startled London and gave the signal for a strange exodus. Every train to
Dover was crowded; every steamer to Calais thronged with members of the
aristocratic and leisured classes, who seemed to prefer Paris, or even Nice
out of the season, to a city like London, where the police might act withsuch unexpected vigour. The truth was that the cultured æsthetes whom I
have already described had been thunderstruck by the facts which the
Queensberry trial had laid bare. For the first time they learned that such
houses as Taylor's were under police supervision, and that creatures like
Wood and Parker were classified and watched. They had imagined that in
"the home of liberty" such practices passed unnoticed. It came as a shock to
their preconceived ideas that the police in London knew a great many
things which they were not supposed to concern themselves with, and this
unwelcome glare of light drove the vicious forth in wild haste.
Never was Paris so crowded with members of the English governing
classes; here was to be seen a famous ex-Minister; there the fine face of the
president of a Royal society; at one table in the Café de la Paix, a
millionaire recently ennobled, and celebrated for his exquisite taste in art;
opposite to him a famous general. It was even said that a celebrated Englishactor took a return ticket for three or four days to Paris, just to be in the
fashion. The mummer returned quickly; but the majority of the migrants
stayed abroad for some time. The wind of terror which had swept them
across the Channel opposed their return, and they scattered over the
Continent from Naples to Monte Carlo and from Palermo to Seville under
all sorts of pretexts.
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The gravest result of the magistrate's refusal to accept bail was purely
personal. Oscar's income dried up at the source. His books were withdrawn
from sale; no one went to see his plays; every shop keeper to whom he
owed a penny took immediate action against him. Judgments were obtained
and an execution put into his house in Tite Street. Within a month, at thevery moment when he most needed money to fee counsel and procure
evidence, he was beggared and sold up, and because of his confinement in
prison the sale was conducted under such conditions that, whereas in
ordinary times his effects would have covered the claims against him three
times over, all his belongings went for nothing, and the man who was
making £4,000 or £5,000 a year by his plays was adjudicated a bankrupt for
a little over £1,000. £600 of this sum were for Lord Queensberry's costs
which the Queensberry family--Lord Douglas of Hawick, Lord AlfredDouglas and their mother--had promised in writing to pay, but when the
time came, absolutely refused to pay. Most unfortunately many of Oscar's
MSS. were stolen or lost in the disorder of the sheriff's legal proceedings.
Wilde could have cried, with Shylock, "You take my life when you do take
away the means whereby I live." But at the time nine Englishmen out of ten
applauded what was practically persecution.
A worse thing remains to be told. The right of free speech which
Englishmen pride themselves on had utterly disappeared, as it always does
disappear in England when there is most need of it. It was impossible to say
one word in Wilde's defence or even in extenuation of his sin in any
London print. At this time I owned the greater part of the Saturday Review
and edited it. Here at any rate one might have thought I could have set forth
in a Christian country a sane and liberal view. I had no wish to minimise
the offence. No one condemned unnatural vice more than I, but OscarWilde was a distinguished man of letters; he had written beautiful things,
and his good works should have been allowed to speak in his favour. I
wrote an article setting forth this view. My printers immediately informed
me that they thought the article ill-advised, and when I insisted they said
they would prefer not to print it. Yet there was nothing in it beyond a plea
to suspend judgment and defer insult till after the trial. Messrs. Smith and
Sons, the great booksellers, who somehow got wind of the matter (through
my publisher, I believe), sent to say that they would not sell any paper that
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attempted to defend Oscar Wilde; it would be better even, they added, not
to mention his name. The English tradesman-censors were determined that
this man should have Jedburg justice. I should have ruined the Saturday
Review by the mere attempt to treat the matter fairly.
In this extremity I went to the great leader of public opinion in England.
Mr. Arthur Walter, the manager of The Times, had always been kind to me;
he was a man of balanced mind, who had taken high honours at Oxford in
his youth, and for twenty years had rubbed shoulders with the leading men
in every rank of life. I went down to stay with him in Berkshire, and I urged
upon him what I regarded as the aristocratic view. In England it was
manifest that under the circumstances there was no chance of a fair trial,
and it seemed to me the duty of The Times to say plainly that this manshould not be condemned beforehand, and that if he were condemned his
merits should be taken into consideration in his punishment, as well as his
demerits.
While willing to listen to me, Mr. Walter did not share my views. A man
who had written a great poem or a great play did not rank in his esteem
with a man who had won a skirmish against a handful of unarmed savages,
or one who had stolen a piece of land from some barbarians and annexed it
to the Empire. In his heart he held the view of the English landed
aristocracy, that the ordinary successful general or admiral or statesman
was infinitely more important than a Shakespeare or a Browning. He could
not be persuaded to believe that the names of Gladstone, Disraeli,
Wolseley, Roberts, and Wood, would diminish and fade from day to day till
in a hundred years they would scarcely be known, even to the educated;
whereas the fame of Browning, Swinburne, Meredith, or even Oscar Wilde,would increase and grow brighter with time, till, in one hundred or five
hundred years, no one would dream of comparing pushful politicians like
Gladstone or Beaconsfield with men of genius like Swinburne or Wilde. He
simply would not see it and when he perceived that the weight of argument
was against him he declared that if it were true, it was so much the worse
for humanity. In his opinion anyone living a clean life was worth more than
a writer of love songs or the maker of clever comedies--Mr. John Smith
worth more than Shakespeare!
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He was as deaf as only Englishmen can be deaf to the plea for abstract
justice.
"You don't even say Wilde's innocent," he threw at me more than once.
"I believe him to be innocent," I declared truthfully, "but it is better that a
hundred guilty men go free than that one man should not have a fair trial.
And how can this man have a fair trial now when the papers for weeks past
have been filled with violent diatribes against him and his works?"
One point, peculiarly English, he used again and again.
"So long as substantial justice is done," he said, "it is all we care about."
"Substantial justice will never be done," I cried, "so long as that is your
ideal. Your arrow can never go quite so high as it is aimed." But I got no
further.
If Oscar Wilde had been a general or a so-called empire builder, The Times
might have affronted public opinion and called attention to his virtues, and
argued that they should be taken in extenuation of his offences; but as he
was only a writer no one seemed to owe him anything or to care what
became of him.
Mr. Walter was fair-minded in comparison with most men of his class.
There was staying with him at this very time an Irish gentleman, who
listened to my pleading for Wilde with ill-concealed indignation. Excited
by Arthur Walter's obstinacy to find fresh arguments, I pointed out thatWilde's offence was pathological and not criminal and would not be
punished in a properly constituted state.
"You admit," I said, "that we punish crime to prevent it spreading; wipe this
sin off the statute book and you would not increase the sinners by one: then
why punish them?"
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"Oi'd whip such sinners to death, so I would," cried the Irishman; "hangin's
too good for them."
"You only punished lepers," I went on, "in the middle ages, because you
believed that leprosy was catching: this malady is not even catching."
"Faith, Oi'd punish it with extermination," cried the Irishman.
Exasperated by the fact that his idiot prejudice was hurting my friend, I said
at length with a smile:
"You are very bitter: I'm not; you see, I have no sexual jealousy to inflame
me."
On this Mr. Walter had to interfere between us to keep the peace, but the
mischief was done: my advocacy remained without effect.
It is very curious how deep-rooted and enduring is the prejudice against
writers in England. Not only is no attempt made to rate them at their true
value, at the value which posterity puts upon their work; but they are
continually treated as outcasts and denied the most ordinary justice. The
various trials of Oscar Wilde are to the thinker an object lesson in the force
of this prejudice, but some may explain the prejudice against Wilde on the
score of the peculiar abhorrence with which the offence ascribed to him is
regarded in England.
Let me take an example from the papers of to-day--I am writing in January,
1910. I find in my Daily Mail that at Bow Street police court a Londonmagistrate, Sir Albert de Rutzen, ordered the destruction of 272 volumes of
the English translation of Balzac's "Les Contes Drolatiques" on the ground
that the book was obscene. "Les Contes Drolatiques" is an acknowledged
masterpiece, and is not nearly so free spoken as "Lear" or "Hamlet" or
"Tom Jones" or "Anthony and Cleopatra." What would be thought of a
French magistrate or a German magistrate who ordered a fair translation of
"Hamlet" or of "Lear" to be burnt, because of its obscenity? He would be
regarded as demented. One can only understand such a judgment as an
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isolated fact. But in England this monstrous stupidity is the rule. Sir A. de
Rutzen was not satisfied with ordering the books to be burnt and fining the
bookseller; he went on to justify his condemnation and praise the police:
"It is perfectly clear to my mind that a more foul and filthy black spot hasnot been found in London for a long time, and the police have done
uncommonly well in bringing the matter to light. I consider that the books
are likely to do a great deal of harm."
Fancy the state of mind of the man who can talk such poisonous nonsense;
who, with the knowledge of what Piccadilly is at night in his mind, can
speak of the translation of a masterpiece as one of the "most filthy black
spots" to be found in London. To say that such a man is insane is, Isuppose, going too far; but to say that he does not know the value or the
meaning of the words he uses, to say that he is driven by an extraordinary
and brainless prejudice, is certainly the modesty of truth.
It is this sort of perversity on the part of Sir A. de Rutzen and of nine out of
ten Englishmen that makes Frenchmen, Germans and Italians speak of them
as ingrained hypocrites. But they are not nearly so hypocritical as they are
uneducated and unintelligent, rebellious to the humanising influence of art
and literature. The ordinary Englishman would much prefer to be called an
athlete than a poet. The Puritan Commonwealth Parliament ordered the
pictures of Charles I. to be sold, but such of them as were indecent to be
burnt; accordingly half a dozen Titians were solemnly burnt and the
nucleus of a great national gallery destroyed. One can see Sir A. de Rutzen
solemnly assisting at this holocaust and devoutly deciding that all the
masterpieces which showed temptingly a woman's beautiful breasts were"foul and filthy black spots" and must be burnt as harmful. Or rather one
can see that Sir A. de Rutzen has in two and a half centuries managed to get
a little beyond this primitive Puritan standpoint: he might allow a pictorial
masterpiece to-day to pass unburnt, but a written masterpiece is still to him
anathema.
A part of this prejudice comes from the fact that the English have a special
dislike for every form of sexual indulgence. It is not consistent with their
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ideal of manhood, and, like the poor foolish magistrate, they have not yet
grasped the truth, which one might have thought the example of the
Japanese would have made plain by now to the dullest, that a nation may be
extraordinarily brave, vigorous and self-sacrificing and at the same time
intensely sensuous, and sensitive to every refinement of passion. If thegreat English middle class were as well educated as the German middle
class, such a judgment as this of Sir A. de Rutzen would be scouted as
ridiculous and absurd, or rather would be utterly unthinkable.
In Anglo-Saxon countries both the artist and the sexual passion are under a
ban. The race is more easily moved martially than amorously and it regards
its overpowering combative instincts as virtuous just as it is apt to despise
what it likes to call "languishing love." The poet Middleton couldn't put hisdream city in England--a city of fair skies and fairer streets:
And joy was there; in all the city's length I saw no fingers trembling for the
sword; Nathless they doted on their bodies' strength, That they might
gentler be. Love was their lord.
Both America and England to-day offer terrifying examples of the
despotism of an unenlightened and vulgar public opinion in all the highest
concerns of man--in art, in literature and in religion. There is no despotism
on earth so soul-destroying to the artist: it is baser and more degrading than
anything known in Russia. The consequences of this tyranny of an
uneducated middle class and a barbarian aristocracy are shown in detail in
the trial of Oscar Wilde and in the savagery with which he was treated by
the English officers of justice.
CHAPTER XV
As soon as I heard that Oscar Wilde was arrested and bail refused, I tried to
get permission to visit him in Holloway. I was told I should have to see him
in a kind of barred cage; and talk to him from the distance of at least a yard.
It seemed to me too painful for both of us, so I went to the higher
authorities and got permission to see him in a private room. The Governor
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met me at the entrance of the prison: to my surprise he was more than
courteous; charmingly kind and sympathetic.
"We all hope," he said, "that he will soon be free; this is no place for him.
Everyone likes him, everyone. It is a great pity."
He evidently felt much more than he said, and my heart went out to him.
He left me in a bare room furnished with a small square deal table and two
kitchen chairs. In a moment or two Oscar came in accompanied by a
warder. In silence we clasped hands. He looked miserably anxious and
pulled down and I felt that I had nothing to do but cheer him up.
"I am glad to see you," I cried. "I hope the warders are kind to you?"
"Yes, Frank," he replied in a hopeless way, "but everyone else is against
me: it is hard."
"Don't harbour that thought," I answered; "many whom you don't know,
and whom you will never know, are on your side. Stand for them and for
the myriads who are coming afterwards and make a fight of it."
"I'm afraid I'm not a fighter, Frank, as you once said," he replied sadly,
"and they won't give me bail. How can I get evidence or think in this place
of torture? Fancy refusing me bail," he went on, "though I stayed in London
when I might have gone abroad."
"You should have gone," I cried in French, hot with indignation; "why
didn't you go, the moment you came out of the court?"
"I couldn't think at first," he answered in the same tongue; "I couldn't think
at all: I was numbed."
"Your friends should have thought of it," I insisted, not knowing then that
they had done their best.
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At this moment the warder, who had turned away towards the door, came
back.
"You are not allowed, sir, to talk in a foreign language," he said quietly.
"You will understand we have to obey the rules. Besides, the prisoner mustnot speak of this prison as a place of torture. I ought to report that; I'm
sorry."
The misery of it all brought tears to my eyes: his gaolers even felt sorry for
him. I thanked the warder and turned again to Oscar.
"Don't let yourself fear at all," I exclaimed. "You will have your chance
again and must take it; only don't lose heart and don't be witty next time incourt. The jury hate it. They regard it as intellectual superiority and
impudence. Treat all things seriously and with grave dignity. Defend
yourself as David would have defended his love for Jonathan. Make them
all listen to you. I would undertake to get free with half your talent even if I
were guilty; a resolution not to be beaten is always half the battle.... Make
your trial memorable from your entrance into the court to the decision of
the jury. Use every opportunity and give your real character a chance to
fight for you."
I spoke with tears in my eyes and rage in my heart.
"I will do my best, Frank," he said despondingly, "I will do my best. If I
were out of this place, I might think of something, but it is dreadful to be
here. One has to go to bed by daylight and the nights are interminable."
"Haven't you a watch?" I cried.
"They don't allow you to have a watch in prison," he replied.
"But why not?" I asked in amazement. I did not know that every rule in an
English prison is cunningly devised to annoy and degrade the unfortunate
prisoner.
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Oscar lifted his hands hopelessly:
"One may not smoke; not even a cigarette; and so I cannot sleep. All the
past comes back; the golden hours; the June days in London with the
sunshine dappling the grass and the silken rustling of the wind in the trees.Do you remember Wordsworth speaks 'of the wind in the trees'? How I
wish I could hear it now, breathe it once again. I might get strength then to
fight."
"Is the food good?" I asked.
"It's all right; I get it from outside. The food doesn't matter. It is the
smoking I miss, the freedom, the companionship. My mind will not actwhen I'm alone. I can only think of what has been and torment myself.
Already I've been punished enough for the sins of a lifetime."
"Is there nothing I can do for you, nothing you want?" I asked.
"No, Frank," he answered, "it was kind of you to come to see me, I wish I
could tell you how kind."
"Don't think of it," I said; "if I'm any good send for me at any moment: a
word will bring me. They allow you books, don't they?"
"Yes, Frank."
"I wish you would get the 'Apologia of Plato'," I said, "and take a big
draught of that deathless smiling courage of Socrates."
"Ah, Frank, how much more humane were the Greeks. They let his friends
see him and talk to him by the hour, though he was condemned to death.
There were no warders there to listen, no degrading conditions."
"Quite true," I cried, suddenly realising how much better Oscar Wilde
would have been treated in Athens two thousand years ago. "Our progress
is mainly change; we don't shed our cruelty; even Christ has not been able
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to humanise us."
He nodded his head. At first he seemed greatly distressed; but I managed to
encourage him a little, for at the close of the talk he questioned me:
"Do you really think I may win, Frank?"
"Of course you'll win," I replied. "You must win: you must not think of
being beaten. Take it that they will not want to convict you. Say it to
yourself in the court; don't let yourself fear for a moment. Your enemies are
merely stupid, unhappy creatures crawling about for a few miserable years
between earth and sun; fated to die and leave no trace, no memory.
Remember you are fighting for all of us, for every artist and thinker who isto be born into the English world.... It is better to win like Galileo than to
be burnt like Giordano Bruno. Don't let them make another martyr. Use all
your brains and eloquence and charm. Don't be afraid. They will not
condemn you if they know you."
"I have been trying to think," he said, "trying to make up my mind to bear
one whole year of this life. It's dreadful, Frank, I had no idea that prison
was so dreadful."
The warder again drew down his brows. I hastened to change the subject.
"That's why you must resolve not to have any more of it," I said; "I wish I
had seen you when you came out of court, but I really thought you didn't
want me; you turned away from me."
"Oh, Frank, how could I?" he cried. "I should have been so grateful to you."
"I'm very shortsighted," I rejoined, "and I thought you did. It is our foolish
little vanities which prevent us acting as we should. But let me know if I
can do anything for you. If you want me, I'll come at any moment."
I said this because the warder had already given me a sign; he now said:
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"Time is up."
Once again we clasped hands.
"You must win," I said; "don't think of defeat. Even your enemies arehuman. Convert them. You can do it, believe me," and I went with dread in
my heart, and pity and indignation.
Be still, be still, my soul; it is but for a season: Let us endure an hour and
see injustice done.
The Governor met me almost at the door.
"It is terrible," I exclaimed.
"This is no place for him," he answered. He has nothing to do with us here.
Everyone likes him and pities him: the warders, everyone. Anything I can
do to make his stay tolerable shall be done."
We shook hands. I think there were tears in both our eyes as we parted.
This humane Governor had taught me that Oscar's gentleness and
kindness--his sweetness of nature--would win all hearts if it had time to
make itself known. Yet there he was in prison. His face and figure came
before me again and again: the unshaven face; the frightened, sad air; the
hopeless, toneless voice. The cleanliness even of the bare hard room was
ugly; the English are foolish enough to degrade those they punish. Revolt
was blazing in me.
As I went away I looked up at the mediæval castellated gateway of the
place, and thought how perfectly the architecture suited the spirit of the
institution. The whole thing belongs to the middle ages, and not to our
modern life. Fancy having both prison and hospital side by side; indeed a
hospital even in the prison; torture and lovingkindness; punishment and
pity under the same roof. What a blank contradiction and stupidity. Will
civilisation never reach humane ideals? Will men always punish most
severely the sins they do not understand and which hold for them no
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temptation? Did Jesus suffer in vain?
* * * * *
Oscar Wilde was committed on the 19th of April; a "true bill" was foundagainst him by the grand jury on the 24th; and, as the case was put down
for trial at the Old Bailey almost immediately, a postponement was asked
for till the May sessions, on the ground first that the defence had not had
time to prepare their case and further, that in the state of popular feeling at
the moment, Mr. Wilde would not get a fair and impartial trial. Mr. Justice
Charles, who was to try the case, heard the application and refused it
peremptorily: "Any suggestion that the defendant would not have a fair trial
was groundless," he declared; yet he knew better. In his summing up of thecase on May 1st he stated that "for weeks it had been impossible to open a
newspaper without reading some reference to the case," and when he asked
the jury not to allow "preconceived opinions to weigh with them" he was
admitting the truth that every newspaper reference was charged with dislike
and contempt of Oscar Wilde. A fair trial indeed!
The trial took place at the Old Bailey, three days later, April 27th, 1895,
before Mr. Justice Charles. Mr. C.F. Gill and A. Gill with Mr. Horace
Avory appeared for the Public Prosecutor. Mr. Wilde was again defended
by Sir Edward Clarke, Mr. Charles Mathews and Mr. Travers Humphreys,
while Mr. J.P. Grain and Mr. Paul Taylor were counsel for the other
prisoner. The trial began on a Saturday and the whole of the day was taken
up with a legal argument. I am not going to give the details of the case. I
shall only note the chief features of it and the unfairness which
characterised it.
Sir Edward Clarke pointed out that there was one set of charges under the
Criminal Law Amendment Act and another set of charges of conspiracy.
He urged that the charges of conspiracy should be dropped. Under the
counts alleging conspiracy, the defendants could not be called on as
witnesses, which put the defence at a disadvantage. In the end the Judge
decided that there were inconveniences; but he would not accede to Sir
Edward Clarke's request. Later in the trial, however, Mr. Gill himself
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withdrew the charges of conspiracy, and the Judge admitted explicitly in
his summing up that, if he had known the evidence which was to be
offered, he would not have allowed these charges of conspiracy to be made.
By this confession he apparently cleared his conscience just as Pilate
washed his hands. But the wrong had already been done. Not only did thischarge of conspiracy embarrass the defence, but if it had never been made,
as it should never have been made, then Sir Edward Clarke would have
insisted and could have insisted properly that the two men should be tried
separately, and Wilde would not have been discredited by being coupled
with Taylor, whose character was notorious and who had already been in
the hands of the police on a similar charge.
This was not the only instance of unfairness in the conduct of theprosecution. The Treasury put a youth called Atkins in the box, thus
declaring him to be at least a credible witness; but Atkins was proved by
Sir Edward Clarke to have perjured himself in the court in the most
barefaced way. In fact the Treasury witnesses against Wilde were all
blackmailers and people of the lowest character, with two exceptions. The
exceptions were a boy named Mavor and a youth named Shelley. With
regard to Mavor the judge admitted that no evidence had been offered that
he could place before the jury; but in his summing up he was greatly
affected by the evidence of Shelley. Shelley was a young man who seemed
to be afflicted with a species of religious mania. Mr. Justice Charles gave
great weight to his testimony. He invited the jury to say that "although there
was, in his correspondence which had been read, evidence of excitability, to
talk of him as a young man who did not know what he was saying was to
exaggerate the effect of his letters." He went on to ask with much
solemnity: "Why should this young man have invented a tale, which musthave been unpleasant to him to present from the witness box?"
In the later trial before Mr. Justice Wills the Judge had to rule out the
evidence of Shelley in toto, because it was wholly without corroboration. If
the case before Mr. Justice Charles had not been confused with the charges
of conspiracy, there is no doubt that he too would have ruled out the
evidence of Shelley, and then his summing up must have been entirely in
favour of Wilde.
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The singular malevolence of the prosecution also can be estimated by their
use of the so-called "literary argument." Wilde had written in a magazine
called The Chameleon. The Chameleon contained an immoral story, with
which Wilde had nothing to do, and which he had repudiated as offensive.
Yet the prosecution tried to make him responsible in some way for theimmorality of a writing which he knew nothing about.
Wilde had said two poems of Lord Alfred Douglas were "beautiful." The
prosecution declared that these poems were in essence a defence of the
vilest immorality, but is it not possible for the most passionate poem, even
the most vicious, to be "beautiful"? Nothing was ever written more
passionate than one of the poems of Sappho. Yet a fragment has been
selected out and preserved by the admiration of a hundred generations of men. The prosecution was in the position all the time of one who declared
that a man who praised a nude picture must necessarily be immoral. Such a
contention would be inconceivable in any other civilised country. Even the
Judge was on much the same intellectual level. It would not be fair, he
admitted, to condemn a poet or dramatic writer by his works and he went
on:
"It is unfortunately true that while some of our greatest writers have passed
long years in writing nothing but the most wholesome literature--literature
of the highest genius, and which anybody can read, such as the literature of
Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens; it is also true that there were other
great writers, more especially in the eighteenth century, perfectly
noble-minded men themselves, who somehow or other have permitted
themselves to pen volumes which it is painful for persons of ordinary
modesty and decency to read."
It would have been more honest and more liberal to have brushed away the
nonsensical indictment in a sentence. Would the Treasury have put
Shakespeare on trial for "Hamlet" or "Lear," or would they have
condemned the writer of "The Song of Solomon" for immorality, or sent St.
Paul to prison for his "Epistle to the Corinthians"?
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Middle-class prejudice and hypocritic canting twaddle from Judge and
advocate dragged their weary length along for days and days. On
Wednesday Sir Edward Clarke made his speech for the defence. He pointed
out the unfairness of the charges of conspiracy which had tardily been
withdrawn. He went on to say that the most remarkable characteristic of thecase was the fact that it had been the occasion for conduct on the part of
certain sections of the press which was disgraceful, and which imperilled
the administration of justice, and was in the highest degree injurious to the
client for whom he was pleading. Nothing, he concluded, could be more
unfair than the way Mr. Wilde had been criticised in the press for weeks
and weeks. But no judge interfered on his behalf.
Sir Edward Clarke evidently thought that to prove unfairness would noteven influence the minds of the London jury. He was content to repudiate
the attempt to judge Mr. Wilde by his books or by an article which he had
condemned, or by poems which he had not written. He laid stress on the
fact that Mr. Wilde had himself brought the charge against Lord
Queensberry which had provoked the whole investigation: "on March 30th,
Mr. Wilde," he said, "knew the catalogue of accusations"; and he asked: did
the jury believe that, if he had been guilty, he would have stayed in
England and brought about the first trial? Insane would hardly be the word
for such conduct, if Mr. Wilde really had been guilty. Moreover, before
even hearing the specific accusations, Mr. Wilde had gone into the witness
box to deny them.
Clarke's speech was a good one, but nothing out of the common: no new
arguments were used in it; not one striking illustration. Needless to say the
higher advocacy of sympathy was conspicuous by its absence.
Again, the interesting part of the trial was the cross-examination of Oscar
Wilde.
Mr. Gill examined him at length on the two poems which Lord Alfred
Douglas had contributed to The Chameleon, which Mr. Wilde had called
"beautiful." The first was in "Praise of Shame," the second was one called
"Two Loves." Sir Edward Clarke, interposing, said:
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"That's not Mr. Wilde's, Mr. Gill."
Mr. Gill: "I am not aware that I said it was."
Sir Edward Clarke: "I thought you would be glad to say it was not."
Mr. Gill insisted that Mr. Wilde should explain the poem in "Praise of
Shame."
Mr. Wilde said that the first poem seemed obscure, but, when pressed as to
the "love" described in the second poem, he let himself go for the first time
and perhaps the only time during the trial; he said:
"The 'love' that dare not speak its name in this century is such a great
affection of an older for a younger man as there was between David and
Jonathan, such as Plato made the very base of his philosophy and such as
you find in the sonnets of Michaelangelo and Shakespeare--a deep spiritual
affection that is as pure as it is perfect, and dictates great works of art like
those of Shakespeare and Michaelangelo and those two letters of mine,
such as they are, and which is in this century misunderstood--so
misunderstood that, on account of it, I am placed where I am now. It is
beautiful; it is fine; it is the noblest form of affection. It is intellectual, and
it repeatedly exists between an elder and younger man, when the elder man
has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life.
That it should be so the world does not understand. It mocks at it and
sometimes puts one into the pillory for it."
At this stage there was loud applause in the gallery of the court, and thelearned Judge at once said: "I shall have the Court cleared if there is the
slightest manifestation of feeling. There must be complete silence
preserved."
Mr. Justice Charles repressed the cheering in favour of Mr. Oscar Wilde
with great severity, though Mr. Justice Collins did not attempt to restrain
the cheering which filled his court and accompanied the dispersing crowd
into the street on the acquittal of Lord Queensberry.
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In spite, however, of the unfair criticisms of the press; in spite of the unfair
conduct of the prosecution, and in spite of the manifest prejudice and
Philistine ignorance of the Judge, the jury disagreed.
Then followed the most dramatic incident of the whole trial. Once more SirEdward Clarke applied for bail on behalf of Oscar Wilde. "After what has
happened," he said, "I do not think the Crown will make any objection to
this application." The Crown left the matter to the Judge, no doubt in all
security; for the Judge immediately refused the application. Sir Edward
Clarke then went on to say that, in the case of a re-trial, it ought not to take
place immediately. He continued:
"The burden of those engaged in the case is very heavy, and I think it onlyright that the Treasury should have an opportunity between this and another
session of considering the mode in which the case should be presented, if
indeed it is presented at all."
Mr. Gill immediately rose to the challenge.
"The case will certainly be tried again," he declared, "whether it is to be
tried again at once or in the next sessions will be a matter of convenience.
Probably the most desirable course will be for the case to go to the next
sessions. That is the usual course."
Mr. Justice Charles: "If that is the usual course, let it be so."
The next session of the Central Criminal Court opened on the 20th of the
same month.
Not three weeks' respite, still it might be enough: it was inconceivable that
a Judge in Chambers would refuse to accept bail: fortunately the law allows
him no option.
* * * * *
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The application for bail was made in due course to a Judge in Chambers,
and in spite of the bad example of the magistrate, and of Mr. Justice
Charles, it was granted and Wilde was set free in his own recognizance of
£2,500 with two other sureties for £1,250 each. It spoke volumes for the
charm and fascination of the man that people were found to undertake thisonerous responsibility. Their names deserve to be recorded; one was Lord
Douglas of Hawick, the other a clergyman, the Rev. Stewart Headlam. I
offered to be one bail: but I was not a householder at the time and my name
was, therefore, not acceptable. I suppose the Treasury objected, which
shows, I am inclined to think, some glimmering of sense on its part.
As soon as the bail was accepted I began to think of preparations for
Oscar's escape. It was high time something was done to save him from thewolves. The day after his release a London morning journal was not
ashamed to publish what it declared was a correct analysis of the voting of
the jury on the various counts. According to this authority, ten jurors were
generally for conviction and two against, in the case of Wilde; the
statement was widely accepted because it added that the voting was more
favourable to Taylor than to Wilde, which was so unexpected and so
senseless that it carried with it a certain plausibility: Credo quia incredible.
I had seen enough of English justice and English judges and English
journals to convince me that Oscar Wilde had no more chance of a fair trial
than if he had been an Irish "Invincible." Everyone had made up his mind
and would not even listen to reason: he was practically certain to be
convicted, and if convicted perfectly certain to be punished with savage
ferocity. The judge would probably think he was showing impartiality by
punishing him for his qualities of charm and high intelligence. For the firsttime in my life I understood the full significance of Montaigne's confession
that if he were accused of stealing the towers of Notre Dame, he would fly
the kingdom rather than risk a trial, and Montaigne was a lawyer. I set to
work at once to complete my preparations.
I did not think I ran any risk in helping Oscar to get away. The newspapers
had seized the opportunity of the trials before the magistrate and before Mr.
Justice Charles and had overwhelmed the public with such a sea of
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nauseous filth and impurity as could only be exposed to the public nostrils
in pudibond England. Everyone, I thought, must be sick of the testimony
and eager to have done with the whole thing. In this I may have been
mistaken. The hatred of Wilde seemed universal and extraordinarily
malignant.
I wanted a steam yacht. Curiously enough on the very day when I was
thinking of running down to Cowes to hire one, a gentleman at lunch
mentioned that he had one in the Thames. I asked him could I charter it?
"Certainly," he replied, "and I will let you have it for the bare cost for the
next month or two."
"One month will do for me," I said.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
I don't know why, but a thought came into my head: I would tell him the
truth, and see what he would say. I took him aside and told him the bare
facts. At once he declared that the yacht was at my service for such work as
that without money: he would be too glad to lend it to me: it was horrible
that such a man as Wilde should be treated as a common criminal.
He felt as Henry VIII felt in Shakespeare's play of that name:
"... there's some of ye, I see, More out of malice than integrity, Would try
him to the utmost, ..."
It was not the generosity in my friend's offer that astonished me, but the
consideration for Wilde; I thought the lenity so singular in England that I
feel compelled to explain it. Though an Englishman born and bred my
friend was by race a Jew--a man of the widest culture, who had no
sympathy whatever with the vice attributed to Oscar. Feeling consoled
because there was at least one generous, kind heart in the world, I went next
day to Willie Wilde's house in Oakley Street to see Oscar. I had written to
him on the previous evening that I was coming to take Oscar out to lunch.
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Willie Wilde met me at the door; he was much excited apparently by the
notoriety attaching to Oscar; he was volubly eager to tell me that, though
we had not been friends, yet my support of Oscar was most friendly and he
would therefore bury the hatchet. He had never interested me, and I was
unconscious of any hatchet and careless whether he buried it or blessed it. Irepeated drily that I had come to take Oscar to lunch.
"I know you have," he said, "and it's most kind of you; but he can't go."
"Why not?" I asked as I went in.
Oscar was gloomy, depressed, and evidently suffering. Willie's theatrical
insincerity had annoyed me a little, and I was eager to get away. Suddenly Isaw Sherard, who has since done his best for Oscar's memory. In his book
there is a record of this visit of mine. He was standing silently by the wall.
"I've come to take you to lunch," I said to Oscar.
"But he cannot go out," cried Willie.
"Of course he can," I insisted, "I've come to take him."
"But where to?" asked Willie.
"Yes, Frank, where to?" repeated Oscar meekly.
"Anywhere you like," I said, "the Savoy if you like, the Café Royal for
choice."
"Oh, Frank, I dare not," cried Oscar.
"No, no," cried Willie, "there would be a scandal; someone'll insult him and
it would do harm; set people's backs up."
"Oh, Frank, I dare not," echoed Oscar.
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"No one will insult him. There will be no scandal," I replied, "and it will do
good."
"But what will people say?" cried Willie.
"No one ever knows what people will say," I retorted, "and people always
speak best of those who don't care a damn what they do say."
"Oh, Frank, I could not go to a place like the Savoy where I am well
known," objected Oscar.
"All right," I agreed, "you shall go where you like. All London is before us.
I must have a talk with you, and it will do you good to get out into the air,and sun yourself and feel the wind in your face. Come, there's a hansom at
the door."
It was not long before I had conquered his objections and Willie's
absurdities and taken him with me. Scarcely had we left the house when his
spirits began to lift, and he rippled into laughter.
"Really, Frank, it is strange, but I do not feel frightened and depressed any
more, and the people don't boo and hiss at me. Is it not dreadful the way
they insult the fallen?"
"We are not going to talk about it," I said; "we are going to talk of victories
and not of defeats."
"Ah, Frank, there will be no more victories for me."
"Nonsense," I cried; "now where are we going?"
"Some quiet place where I shall not be known."
"You really would not like the Café Royal?" I asked. "Nothing will happen
to you, and I think you would probably find that one or two people would
wish you luck. You have had a rare bad time, and there must be some
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people who understand what you have gone through and know that it is
sufficient punishment for any sin."
"No, Frank," he persisted, "I cannot, I really cannot."
At length we decided on a restaurant in Great Portland Street. We drove
there and had a private room.
I had two purposes in me, springing from the one root, the intense desire to
help him. I felt sure that if the case came up again for trial he would only be
convicted through what I may call good, honest testimony. The jury with
their English prejudice; or rather I should say with their healthy English
instincts would not take the evidence of vile blackmailers against him; hecould only be convicted through untainted evidence such as the evidence of
the chambermaids at the Savoy Hotel, and their evidence was over two
years old and was weak, inasmuch as the facts, if facts, were not acted upon
by the management. Still their testimony was very clear and very positive,
and, taken together with that of the blackmailers, sufficient to ensure
conviction. After our lunch I laid this view before Oscar. He agreed with
me that it was probably the chambermaids' testimony which had weighed
most heavily against him. Their statement and Shelley's had brought about
the injurious tone in the Judge's summing up. The Judge himself had
admitted as much.
"The chambermaids' evidence is wrong," Oscar declared. "They are
mistaken, Frank. It was not me they spoke about at the Savoy Hotel. It was
----. I was never bold enough. I went to see ---- in the morning in his room."
"Thank God," I said, "but why didn't Sir Edward Clarke bring that out?"
"He wanted to; but I would not let him. I told him he must not. I must be
true to my friend. I could not let him."
"But he must," I said, "at any rate if he does not I will. I have three weeks
and in that three weeks I am going to find the chambermaid. I am going to
get a plan of your room and your friend's room, and I'm going to make her
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understand that she was mistaken. She probably remembered you because
of your size: she mistook you for the guilty person; everybody has always
taken you for the ringleader and not the follower."
"But what good is it, Frank, what good is it?" he cried. "Even if youconvinced the chambermaid and she retracted; there would still be Shelley,
and the Judge laid stress on Shelley's evidence as untainted."
"Shelley is an accomplice," I cried, "his testimony needs corroboration.
You don't understand these legal quibbles; but there was not a particle of
corroboration. Sir Edward Clarke should have had his testimony ruled out.
'Twas that conspiracy charge," I cried, "which complicated the matter.
Shelley's evidence, too, will be ruled out at the next trial, you'll see."
"Oh, Frank," he said, "you talk with passion and conviction, as if I were
innocent."
"But you are innocent," I cried in amaze, "aren't you?"
"No, Frank," he said, "I thought you knew that all along."
I stared at him stupidly. "No," I said dully, "I did not know. I did not
believe the accusation. I did not believe it for a moment."
I suppose the difference in my tone and manner struck him, for he said,
timidly putting out his hand:
"This will make a great difference to you, Frank?"
"No," I said, pulling myself together and taking his hand; and after a pause
I went on: "No: curiously enough it has made no difference to me at all. I
do not know why; I suppose I have got more sympathy than morality in me.
It has surprised me, dumbfounded me. The thing has always seemed
fantastic and incredible to me and now you make it exist for me; but it has
no effect on my friendship; none upon my resolve to help you. But I see
that the battle is going to be infinitely harder than I imagined. In fact, now I
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don't think we have a chance of winning a verdict. I came here hoping
against fear that it could be won, though I always felt that it would be better
in the present state of English feeling to go abroad and avoid the risk of a
trial. Now there is no question: you would be insane, as Clarke said, to stay
in England. But why on earth did Alfred Douglas, knowing the truth, everwish you to attack Queensberry?"
"He's very bold and obstinate, Frank," said Oscar weakly.
"Well, now I must play Crito," I resumed, smiling, "and take you away
before the ship comes from Delos."
"Oh, Frank, that would be wonderful; but it's impossible, quite impossible.I should be arrested before I left London, and shamed again in public: they
would boo at me and shout insults.... Oh, it is impossible; I could not risk
it."
"Nonsense," I replied, "I believe the authorities would be only too glad if
you went. I think Clarke's challenge to Gill was curiously ill-advised. He
should have let sleeping dogs lie. Combative Gill was certain to take up the
gauntlet. If Clarke had lain low there might have been no second trial. But
that can't be helped now. Don't believe that it's even difficult to get away;
it's easy. I don't propose to go by Folkestone or Dover."
"But, Frank, what about the people who have stood bail for me? I couldn't
leave them to suffer; they would lose their thousands."
"I shan't let them lose," I replied, "I am quite willing to take half on myown shoulders at once and you can pay the other thousand or so within a
very short time by writing a couple of plays. American papers would be
only too glad to pay you for an interview. The story of your escape would
be worth a thousand pounds; they would give you almost any price for it.
"Leave everything to me, but in the meantime I want you to get out in the
air as much as possible. You are not looking well; you are not yourself."
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"That house is depressing, Frank. Willie makes such a merit of giving me
shelter; he means well, I suppose; but it is all dreadful."
My notes of this talk finish in this way, but the conversation left on me a
deep impression of Oscar's extraordinary weakness or rather extraordinarysoftness of nature backed up and redeemed by a certain magnanimity: he
would not leave the friends in the lurch who had gone bail for him; he
would not give his friend away even to save himself; but neither would he
exert himself greatly to win free. He was like a woman, I said to myself in
wonder, and my pity for him grew keener. He seemed mentally stunned by
the sudden fall, by the discovery of how violently men can hate. He had
never seen the wolf in man before; the vile brute instinct that preys upon
the fallen. He had not believed that such exultant savagery existed; it hadnever come within his ken; now it appalled him. And so he stood there
waiting for what might happen without courage to do anything but suffer.
My heart ached with pity for him, and yet I felt a little impatient with him
as well. Why give up like that? The eternal quarrel of the combative nature
with those who can't or won't fight.
Before getting into the carriage to drive back to his brother's, I ascertained
that he did not need any money. He told me that he had sufficient even for
the expenses of a second trial: this surprised me greatly, for he was very
careless about money; but I found out from him later that a very noble and
cultured woman, a friend of both of us, Miss S----, a Jewess by race tho' not
by religion, had written to him asking if she could help him financially, as
she had been distressed by hearing of his bankruptcy, and feared that he
might be in need. If that were the case she begged him to let her be his
banker, in order that he might be properly defended. He wrote in reply,saying that he was indeed in uttermost distress, that he wanted money, too,
to help his mother as he had always helped her, and that he supposed the
expenses of the second trial would be from £500 to £1,000. Thereupon
Miss S---- sent him a cheque for £1,000, assuring him that it cost her little
even in self-sacrifice, and declaring that it was only inadequate recognition
of the pleasure she had had through his delightful talks. Such actions are
beyond praise; it is the perfume of such sweet and noble human sympathy
that makes this wild beasts' cage of a world habitable for men.
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Before parting we had agreed to meet a few nights afterwards at Mrs.
Leverson's, where he had been invited to dinner, and where I also had been
invited. By that time, I thought to myself, all my preparations would be
perfected.
Looking back now I see clearly that my affection for Oscar Wilde dates
from his confession to me that afternoon. I had been a friend of his for
years; but what had bound us together had been purely intellectual, a
community of literary tastes and ambitions. Now his trust in me and
frankness had thrown down the barrier between us; and made me conscious
of the extraordinary femininity and gentle weakness of his nature, and,
instead of condemning him as I have always condemned that form of
sexual indulgence, I felt only pity for him and a desire to protect and helphim. From that day on our friendship became intimate: I began to divine
him; I knew now that his words would always be more generous and noble
than his actions; knew too that I must take his charm of manner and
vivacity of intercourse for real virtues, and indeed they were as real as the
beauty of flowers; and I was aware as by some sixth sense that, where his
vanity was concerned, I might expect any injustice from him. I was sure
beforehand, however, that I should always forgive him, or rather that I
should always accept whatever he did and love him for the charm and
sweetness and intellect in him and hold myself more than recompensed for
anything I might be able to do, by his delightful companionship.
CHAPTER XVI
In spite of the wit of the hostess and her exquisite cordiality, our dinner atMrs. Leverson's was hardly a success. Oscar was not himself; contrary to
his custom he sat silent and downcast. From time to time he sighed heavily,
and his leaden dejection gradually infected all of us. I was not sorry, for I
wanted to get him away early; by ten o'clock we had left the house and
were in the Cromwell Road. He preferred to walk: without his noticing it I
turned up Queen's Gate towards the park. After walking for ten minutes I
said to him:
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"I want to speak to you seriously. Do you happen to know where Erith is?"
"No, Frank."
"It is a little landing place on the Thames," I went on, "not many milesaway: it can be reached by a fast pair of horses and a brougham in a very
short time. There at Erith is a steam yacht ready to start at a moment's
notice; she has steam up now, one hundred pounds pressure to the square
inch in her boilers; her captain's waiting, her crew ready--a greyhound in
leash; she can do fifteen knots an hour without being pressed. In one hour
she would be free of the Thames and on the high seas--(delightful phrase,
eh?)--high seas indeed where there is freedom uncontrolled.
"If one started now one could breakfast in France, at Boulogne, let us say,
or Dieppe; one could lunch at St. Malo or St. Enogat or any place you like
on the coast of Normandy, and one could dine comfortably at the Sables
d'Olonne, where there is not an Englishman to be found, and where
sunshine reigns even in May from morning till night.
"What do you say, Oscar, will you come and try a homely French bourgeois
dinner to-morrow evening at an inn I know almost at the water's edge? We
could sit out on the little terrace and take our coffee in peace under the
broad vine leaves while watching the silver pathway of the moon widen on
the waters. We could smile at the miseries of London and its wolfish courts
shivering in cold grey mist hundreds of miles away. Does not the prospect
tempt you?"
I spoke at leisure, tasting each delight, looking for his gladness.
"Oh, Frank," he cried, "how wonderful; but how impossible!"
"Impossible! don't be absurd," I retorted. "Do you see those lights yonder?"
and I showed him some lights at the Park gate on the top of the hill in front
of us.
"Yes, Frank."
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"That's a brougham," I said, "with a pair of fast horses. It will take us for a
midnight visit to the steam yacht in double-quick time. There's a little
library on board of French books and English; I've ordered supper in the
cabin--lobster à l'Americaine and a bottle of Pommery. You've never seen
the mouth of the Thames at night, have you? It's a scene from wonderland;houses like blobs of indigo fencing you in; ships drifting past like black
ghosts in the misty air, and the purple sky above never so dark as the river,
the river with its shifting lights of ruby and emerald and topaz, like an oily,
opaque serpent gliding with a weird life of its own.... Come; you must visit
the yacht."
I turned to him, but he was no longer by my side. I gasped; what had
happened? The mist must have hidden him; I ran back ten yards, and therehe was leaning against the railing, hung up with his head on his arm
shaking.
"What's the matter, Oscar?" I cried. "What on earth's the matter?"
"Oh, Frank, I can't go," he cried, "I can't. It would be too wonderful; but it's
impossible. I should be seized by the police. You don't know the police."
"Nonsense," I cried, "the police can't stop you and not a man of them will
see you from start to finish. Besides, I have loose money for any I do meet,
and none of them can resist a 'tip.' You will simply get out of the brougham
and walk fifty yards and you will be on the yacht and free. In fact, if you
like you shall not come out of the brougham until the sailors surround you
as a guard of honour. On board the yacht no one will touch you. No warrant
runs there. Come on, man!"
"Oh, Frank," he groaned, "it's impossible!"
"What's impossible?" I insisted. "Let's consider everything anew at
breakfast to-morrow morning in France. If you want to come back, there's
nothing to prevent you. The yacht will take you back in twenty-four hours.
You will not have broken your bail; you'll have done nothing wrong. You
can go to France, Germany or Siberia so long as you come back by the
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twentieth of May. Take it that I offer you a holiday in France for ten days.
Surely it is better to spend a week with me than in that dismal house in
Oakley Street, where the very door gives one the creeps."
"Oh, Frank, I'd love to," he groaned. "I see everything you say, but I can't. Idare not. I'm caught, Frank, in a trap, I can only wait for the end."
I began to get impatient; he was weaker than I had imagined, weaker a
hundred times.
"Come for a trip, then, man," I cried, and I brought him within twenty yards
of the carriage; but there he stopped as if he had made up his mind.
"No, no, I can't come. I could not go about in France feeling that the
policeman's hand might fall on my shoulder at any moment. I could not live
a life of fear and doubt: it would kill me in a month." His tone was decided.
"Why let your imagination run away with you?" I pleaded. "Do be
reasonable for once. Fear and doubt would soon be over. If the police don't
get you in France within a week after the date fixed for the trial, you need
have no further fear, for they won't get you at all: they don't want you.
You're making mountains out of molehills with nervous fancies."
"I should be arrested."
"Nonsense," I replied, "who would arrest you? No one has the right. You
are out on bail: your bail answers for you till the 20th. Money talks, man;
Englishmen always listen to money. It'll do you good with the public andthe jury to come back from France to stand your trial. Do come," and I took
him by the arm; but he would not move. To my astonishment he faced me
and said:
"And my sureties?"
"We'll pay 'em," I replied, "both of 'em, if you break your bail. Come," but
he would not.
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"Frank, if I were not in Oakley Street to-night Willie would tell the police."
"Your brother?" I cried.
"Yes," he said, "Willie."
"Good God!" I exclaimed; "but let him tell. I have not mentioned Erith or
the steam yacht to a soul. It's the last place in the world the police would
suspect and before he talks we shall be out of reach. Besides they cannot do
anything; you are doing nothing wrong. Please trust me, you do nothing
questionable even till you omit to enter the Old Bailey on the 20th of May."
"You don't know Willie," he continued, "he has made my solicitors buyletters of mine; he has blackmailed me."
"Whew!" I whistled. "But in that case you'll have no compunction in
leaving him without saying 'goodbye.' Let's go and get into the brougham."
"No, no," he repeated, "you don't understand; I can't go, I cannot go."
"Do you mean it really?" I asked. "Do you mean you will not come and
spend a week yachting with me?"
"I cannot."
I drew him a few paces nearer the carriage: something of desolation and
despair in his voice touched me: I looked at him. Tears were pouring down
his face; he was the picture of misery, yet I could not move him.
"Come into the carriage," I said, hoping that the swift wind in his face
would freshen him up, give him a moment's taste of the joy of living and
sharpen the desire of freedom.
"Yes, Frank," he said, "if you will take me to Oakley Street."
"I would as soon take you to prison," I replied; "but as you wish."
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"Good night, Frank," he said, "good night, and thank you."
He got out and went into the house, the gloomy sordid house where the
brother lived who would sell his blood for a price!
* * * * *
Three or four days later we met again, but to my amaze Oscar had not
changed his mind. To talk of him as cast down is the precise truth; he
seemed to me as one who had fallen from a great height and lay half
conscious, stunned on the ground. The moment you moved him, even to
raise his head, it gave him pain and he cried out to be left alone. There he
lay prone, and no one could help him. It was painful to witness his dumbmisery: his mind even, his sunny bright intelligence, seemed to have
deserted him.
Once again he came out with me to lunch. Afterwards we drove through
Regent's Park as the quietest way to Hampstead and had a talk. The air and
swift motion did him good. The beauty of the view from the heath seemed
to revive him. I tried to cheer him up.
"You must know," I said, "that you can win if you want to. You can not
only bring the jury to doubt, but you can make the judge doubt as well. I
was convinced of your innocence in spite of all the witnesses, and I knew
more about you than they did. In the trial before Mr. Justice Charles, the
thing that saved you was that you spoke of the love of David and Jonathan
and the sweet affection which the common world is determined not to
understand. There is another point against you which you have not touchedon yet: Gill asked you what you had in common with those serving-men
and stable boys. You have not explained that. You have explained that you
love youth, the brightness and the gaiety of it, but you have not explained
what seems inexplicable to most men, that you should go about with
servants and strappers."
"Difficult to explain, Frank, isn't it, without the truth?" Evidently his mind
was not working.
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"No," I replied, "easy, simple. Think of Shakespeare. How did he know
Dogberry and Pistol, Bardolph and Doll Tearsheet? He must have gone
about with them. You don't go about with public school boys of your own
class, for you know them; you have nothing to learn from them: they can
teach you nothing. But the stable boy and servant you cannot sketch in yourplays without knowing him, and you can't know him without getting on his
level, and letting him call you 'Oscar' and calling him 'Charlie.' If you rub
this in, the judge will see that he is face to face with the artist in you and
will admit at least that your explanation is plausible. He will hesitate to
condemn you, and once he hesitates you'll win.
"You fought badly because you did not show your own nature sufficiently;
you did not use your brains in the witness box and alas--" I did notcontinue; the truth was I was filled with fear; for I suddenly realised that he
had shown more courage and self-possession in the Queensberry trial than
in the trial before Mr. Justice Charles when so much more was at stake; and
I felt that in the next trial he would be more depressed still, and less
inclined to take the initiative than ever. I had already learned too that I
could not help him; that he would not be lifted out of that "sweet way of
despair," which so attracts the artist spirit. But still I would do my best.
"Do you understand?" I asked.
"Of course, Frank, of course, but you have no conception how weary I am
of the whole thing, of the shame and the struggling and the hatred. To see
those people coming into the box one after the other to witness against me
makes me sick. The self-satisfied grin of the barristers, the pompous foolish
judge with his thin lips and cunning eyes and hard jaw. Oh, it's terrible. Ifeel inclined to stretch out my hands and cry to them, 'Do what you will
with me, in God's name, only do it quickly; cannot you see that I am worn
out? If hatred gives you pleasure, indulge it.' They worry one, Frank, with
ravening jaws, as dogs worry a rabbit. Yet they call themselves men. It is
appalling."
The day was dying, the western sky all draped with crimson, saffron and
rosy curtains: a slight mist over London, purple on the horizon, closer, a
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"You can win, Oscar, if you like:--" my litany to him. His wan dejected
smile brought tears to my eyes.
* * * * *
"Don't you want to make them all speak of you and wonder at you again? If
you were in France, everyone would be asking: will he come back or
disappear altogether? or will he manifest himself henceforth in some new
comedies, more joyous and pagan than ever?"
I might as well have talked to the dead: he seemed numbed, hypnotised
with despair. The punishment had already been greater than he could bear. I
began to fear that prison, if he were condemned to it, would rob him of hisreason; I sometimes feared that his mind was already giving way, so
profound was his depression, so hopeless his despair.
* * * * *
The trial opened before Mr. Justice Wills on the 21st of May, 1895. The
Treasury had sent Sir Frank Lockwood, Q.C., M.P., to lead Mr. C.F. Gill,
Mr. Horace Avory, and Mr. Sutton. Oscar was represented by the same
counsel as on the previous occasion.
The whole trial to me was a nightmare, and it was characterised from the
very beginning by atrocious prejudice and injustice. The High Priests of
Law were weary of being balked; eager to make an end. As soon as the
Judge took his seat, Sir Edward Clarke applied that the defendants should
be tried separately. As they had already been acquitted on the charge of conspiracy, there was no reason why they should be tried together.
The Judge called on the Solicitor-General to answer the application.
The Solicitor-General had nothing to say, but thought it was in the interests
of the defendants to be tried together; for, in case they were tried
separately, it would be necessary to take the defendant Taylor first.
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Sir Edward Clarke tore this pretext to pieces, and Mr. Justice Wills brought
the matter to a conclusion by saying that he was in possession of all the
evidence that had been taken at the previous trials, and his opinion was that
the two defendants should be tried separately.
Sir Edward Clarke then applied that the case of Mr. Wilde should be taken
first as his name stood first on the indictment, and as the first count was
directed against him and had nothing to do with Taylor.... "There are
reasons present, I am sure, too, in your Lordship's mind, why Wilde should
not be tried immediately after the other defendant."
Mr. Justice Wills remarked, with seeming indifference, "It ought not to
make the least difference, Sir Edward. I am sure I and the jury will do ourbest to take care that the last trial has no influence at all on the present."
Sir Edward Clarke stuck to his point. He urged respectfully that as Mr.
Wilde's name stood first on the indictment his case should be taken first.
Mr. Justice Wills said he could not interfere with the discretion of the
prosecution, nor vary the ordinary procedure. Justice and fair play on the
one side and precedent on the other: justice was waved out of court with
serene indifference. Thereupon Sir Edward Clarke pressed that the trial of
Mr. Oscar Wilde should stand over till the next sessions. But again Mr.
Justice Wills refused. Precedent was silent now but prejudice was strong as
ever.
The case against Taylor went on the whole day and was resumed next
morning. Taylor went into the box and denied all the charges. The Judgesummed up dead against him, and at 3.30 the jury retired to consider their
verdict: in forty-five minutes they came into court again with a question
which was significant. In answer to the judge the foreman stated that "they
had agreed that Taylor had introduced Parker to Wilde, but they were not
satisfied with Wilde's guilt in the matter."
Mr. Justice Wills: "Were you agreed as to the charge on the other counts?"
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Foreman: "Yes, my Lord."
Mr. Justice Wills: "Well, possibly it would be as well to take your verdict
upon the other counts."
Through the foreman the jury accordingly intimated that they found Taylor
guilty with regard to Charles and William Parker.
In answer to his Lordship, Sir F. Lockwood said he would take the verdict
given by the jury of "guilty" upon the two counts.
A formal verdict having been entered, the judge ordered the prisoner to
stand down, postponing sentence. Did he postpone the sentence in order notto frighten the next jury by the severity of it? Other reason I could find
none.
Sir Edward Clarke then got up and said that as it was getting rather late,
perhaps after the second jury had disagreed as to Mr. Wilde's guilt--
Sir F. Lockwood here interposed hotly: "I object to Sir Edward Clarke
making these little speeches."
Mr. Justice Wills took the matter up as well.
"You can hardly call it a disagreement, Sir Edward," though what else he
could call it, I was at a loss to imagine.
He then adjourned the case against Oscar Wilde till the next day, when adifferent jury would be impanelled. But whatever jury might be called they
would certainly hear that their forerunners had found Taylor guilty and they
would know that every London paper without exception had approved the
finding. What a fair chance to give Wilde! It was like trying an Irish
Secretary before a jury of Fenians.
The next morning, May 23d, Oscar Wilde appeared in the dock. The
Solicitor-General opened the case, and then called his witnesses. One of the
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first was Edward Shelley, who in cross-examination admitted that he had
been mentally ill when he wrote Mr. Wilde those letters which had been put
in evidence. He was "made nervous from over-study," he said.
Alfred Wood admitted that he had had money given him quite recently,practically blackmailing money. He was as venomous as possible. "When
he went to America," he said, "he told Wilde that he wanted to get away
from mixing with him (Wilde) and Douglas."
Charlie Parker next repeated his disgusting testimony with ineffable
impudence and a certain exultation. Bestial ignominy could go no lower; he
admitted that since the former trial he had been kept at the expense of the
prosecution. After this confession the case was adjourned and we came outof court.
When I reached Fleet Street I was astonished to hear that there had been a
row that same afternoon in Piccadilly between Lord Douglas of Hawick
and his father, the Marquis of Queensberry. Lord Queensberry, it appears,
had been writing disgusting letters about the Wilde case to Lord Douglas's
wife. Meeting him in Piccadilly Percy Douglas stopped him and asked him
to cease writing obscene letters to his wife. The Marquis said he would not
and the father and son came to blows. Queensberry it seems was
exasperated by the fact that Douglas of Hawick was one of those who had
gone bail for Oscar Wilde. One of the telegrams which the Marquis of
Queensberry had sent to Lady Douglas I must put in just to show the insane
nature of the man who could exult in a trial which was damning the
reputation of his own son. The letter was manifestly written after the result
of the Taylor trial:
Must congratulate on verdict, cannot on Percy's appearance. Looks like a
dug up corpse. Fear too much madness of kissing. Taylor guilty. Wilde's
turn to-morrow.
QUEENSBERRY.
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In examination before the magistrate, Mr. Hannay, it was stated that Lord
Queensberry had been sending similar letters to Lady Douglas "full of the
most disgusting charges against Lord Douglas, his wife, and Lord
Queensberry's divorced wife and her family." But Mr. Hannay thought all
this provocation was of no importance and bound over both father and sonto keep the peace--an indefensible decision, a decision only to be explained
by the sympathy everywhere shown to Queensberry because of his victory
over Wilde, otherwise surely any honest magistrate would have condemned
the father who sent obscene letters to his son's wife--a lady above reproach.
These vile letters and the magistrate's bias, seemed to me to add the final
touch of the grotesque to the horrible vileness of the trial. It was all worthy
of the seventh circle of Dante, but Dante had never imagined such a father
and such judges!
* * * * *
Next morning Oscar Wilde was again put in the dock. The evidence of the
Queensberry trial was read and therewith the case was closed for the
Crown.
Sir Edward Clarke rose and submitted that there was no case to go to the
jury on the general counts. After a long legal argument for and against, Mr.
Justice Wills said that he would reserve the question for the Court of
Appeal. The view he took was that "the evidence was of the slenderest
kind"; but he thought the responsibility must be left with the jury. To this
judge "the slenderest kind" of evidence was worthful so long as it told
against the accused.
Sir Edward Clarke then argued that the cases of Shelley, Parker and Wood
failed on the ground of the absence of corroboration. Mr. Justice Wills
admitted that Shelley showed "a peculiar exaltation" of mind; there was,
too, mental derangement in his family, and worst of all there was no
corroboration of his statements. Accordingly, in spite of the arguments of
the Solicitor-General, Shelley's evidence was cut out. But Shelley's
evidence had already been taken, had already prejudiced the jury. Indeed, it
had been the evidence which had influenced Mr. Justice Charles in the
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previous trial to sum up dead against the defendant: Mr. Justice Charles
called Shelley "the only serious witness."
Now it appeared that Shelley's evidence should never have been taken at
all, that the jury ought never to have heard Shelley's testimony or theJudge's acceptance of it!
* * * * *
When the court opened next morning I knew that the whole case depended
on Oscar Wilde, and the showing he would make in the box, but alas! he
was broken and numbed. He was not a fighter, and the length of this contest
might have wearied a combative nature. The Solicitor-General began byexamining him on his letters to Lord Alfred Douglas and we had the "prose
poem" again and the rest of the ineffable nonsensical prejudice of the
middle-class mind against passionate sentiment. It came out in evidence
that Lord Alfred Douglas was now in Calais. His hatred of his father was
the causa causans of the whole case; he had pushed Oscar into the fight
and Oscar, still intent on shielding him, declared that he had asked him to
go abroad.
Sir Edward Clarke again did his poor best. He pointed out that the trial
rested on the evidence of mere blackmailers. He would not quarrel with that
and discuss it, but it was impossible not to see that if blackmailers were to
be listened to and believed, their profession might speedily become a more
deadly mischief and danger to society than it had ever been.
The speech was a weak one; but the people in court cheered Sir EdwardClarke; the cheers were immediately suppressed by the Judge.
The Solicitor-General took up the rest of the day with a rancorous reply. Sir
Edward Clarke even had to remind him that law officers of the Crown
should try to be impartial. One instance of his prejudice may be given.
Examining Oscar as to his letters to Lord Alfred Douglas, Sir Frank
Lockwood wanted to know whether he thought them "decent"?
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The witness replied, "Yes."
"Do you know the meaning of the word, sir?" was this gentleman's retort.
I went out of the court feeling certain that the case was lost. Oscar had notshown himself at all; he had not even spoken with the vigour he had used at
the Queensberry trial. He seemed too despairing to strike a blow.
The summing up of the Judge on May 25th was perversely stupid and
malevolent. He began by declaring that he was "absolutely impartial,"
though his view of the facts had to be corrected again and again by Sir
Edward Clarke: he went on to regret that the charge of conspiracy should
have been introduced, as it had to be abandoned. He then pointed out thathe could not give a colourless summing up, which was "of no use to
anybody." His intelligence can be judged from one crucial point: he
fastened on the fact that Oscar had burnt the letters which he bought from
Wood, which he said were of no importance, except that they concerned
third parties. The Judge had persuaded himself that the letters were
indescribably bad, forgetting apparently that Wood or his associates had
selected and retained the very worst of them for purposes of blackmail and
that this Judge himself, after reading it, couldn't attribute any weight to it;
still he insisted that burning the letters was an act of madness; whereas it
seemed to everyone of the slightest imagination the most natural thing in
the world for an innocent man to do. At the time Oscar burnt the letters he
had no idea that he would ever be on trial. His letters had been
misunderstood and the worst of them was being used against him, and
when he got the others he naturally threw them into the fire. The Judge held
that it was madness, and built upon this inference a pyramid of guilt."Nothing said by Wood should be believed, as he belongs to the vilest class
of criminals; the strength of the accusation depends solely upon the
character of the original introduction of Wood to Wilde as illustrated and
fortified by the story with regard to the letters and their burning."
A pyramid of guilt carefully balanced on its apex! If the foolish Judge had
only read his Shakespeare! What does Henry VI say:
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Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloucester Than from true evidence of
good esteem He be approved in practice culpable.
There was no "true evidence of good esteem" against Wilde, but the Judge
turned a harmless action into a confession of guilt.
Then came an interruption which threw light on the English conception of
justice. The foreman of the jury wanted to know, in view of the intimate
relations between Lord Alfred Douglas and the defendant, whether a
warrant against Lord Alfred Douglas was ever issued.
Mr. Justice Wills: "I should say not; we have never heard of it."
Foreman: "Or ever contemplated?"
Mr. Justice Wills: "That I cannot say, nor can we discuss it. The issue of
such a warrant would not depend upon the testimony of the parties, but
whether there was evidence of such act. Letters pointing to such relations
would not be sufficient. Lord Alfred Douglas was not called, and you can
give what weight you like to that."
Foreman: "If we are to deduce any guilt from these letters, it would apply
equally to Lord Alfred Douglas."
Mr. Justice Wills concurred in that view, but after all he thought it had
nothing to do with the present trial, which was the guilt of the accused.
The jury retired to consider their verdict at half past three. After beingabsent two hours they returned to know whether there was any evidence of
Charles Parker having slept at St. James's Place.
His Lordship replied, "No."
The jury shortly afterwards returned again with the verdict of "Guilty" on
all the counts.
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It may be worth while to note again that the Judge himself admitted that the
evidence on some of the counts was of "the slenderest kind"; but, when
backed by his prejudiced summing up, it was more than sufficient for the
jury.
Sir Edward Clarke pleaded that sentence should be postponed till the next
sessions, when the legal argument would be heard.
Mr. Justice Wills would not be balked: sentence, he thought, should be
given immediately. Then, addressing the prisoners, he said, and again I give
his exact words, lest I should do him wrong:
"Oscar Wilde and Alfred Taylor, the crime of which you have beenconvicted is so bad that one has to put stern restraint upon one's self to
prevent one's self from describing in language which I would rather not use
the sentiments which must rise to the breast of every man of honour who
has heard the details of these two terrible trials.
"That the jury have arrived at a correct verdict in this case I cannot
persuade myself to entertain the shadow of a doubt; and I hope, at all
events, that those who sometimes imagine that a Judge is half-hearted in the
cause of decency and morality because he takes care no prejudice shall
enter into the case may see that that is consistent at least with the utmost
sense of indignation at the horrible charges brought home to both of you.
"It is no use for me to address you. People who can do these things must be
dead to all sense of shame, and one cannot hope to produce any effect upon
them. It is the worst case I have ever tried.... That you, Wilde, have beenthe centre of a circle of extensive corruption of the most hideous kind
among young men it is impossible to doubt.
"I shall under such circumstances be expected to pass the severest sentence
that the law allows. In my judgment it is totally inadequate for such a case
as this.
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"The sentence of the court is that each of you be imprisoned and kept to
hard labour for two years."
The sentence hushed the court in shocked surprise.
Wilde rose and cried, "Can I say anything, my lord?"
Mr. Justice Wills waved his hand deprecatingly amid cries of "Shame" and
hisses from the public gallery; some of the cries and hisses were certainly
addressed to the Judge and well deserved. What did he mean by saying that
Oscar was a "centre of extensive corruption of the most hideous kind"? No
evidence of this had been brought forward by the prosecution. It was not
even alleged that a single innocent person had been corrupted. Theaccusation was invented by this "absolutely impartial" Judge to justify his
atrocious cruelty. The unmerited insults and appalling sentence would have
disgraced the worst Judge of the Inquisition.
Mr. Justice Wills evidently suffered from the peculiar "exaltation" of mind
which he had recognised in Shelley. This peculiarity is shared in a lesser
degree by several other Judges on the English bench in all matters of sexual
morality. What distinguished Mr. Justice Wills was that he was proud of his
prejudice and eager to act on it. He evidently did not know, or did not care,
that the sentence which he had given, declaring it was "totally inadequate,"
had been condemned by a Royal Commission as "inhuman." He would
willingly have pushed "inhumanity" to savagery, out of sheer bewigged
stupidity, and that he was probably well-meaning only intensified the revolt
one felt at such brainless malevolence.
The bitterest words in Dante are not bitter enough to render my feeling:
"Non ragioniam di lor ma guarda e passa."
The whole scene had sickened me. Hatred masquerading as justice, striking
vindictively and adding insult to injury. The vile picture had its fit setting
outside. We had not left the court when the cheering broke out in the
streets, and when we came outside there were troops of the lowest women
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of the town dancing together and kicking up their legs in hideous
abandonment, while the surrounding crowd of policemen and spectators
guffawed with delight. As I turned away from the exhibition, as obscene
and soul-defiling as anything witnessed in the madness of the French
revolution, I caught a glimpse of Wood and the Parkers getting into a cab,laughing and leering.
These were the venal creatures Oscar Wilde was punished for having
corrupted!
End of Project Gutenberg's Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2), by Frank Harris
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